In the IT industry, ODC is the acronym for Offshore Development Center. ODC is a type of outsourcing that can be found in various locations provided by many offshore development providers worldwide. ODC is employed in offshore software development, testing, and deployment.
Establishing an ODC project
- Choose the best-dedicated team to manage your ODC.
- Verify their track records and double-check their references before assigning the project.
- Seek other customers’ previous experience and recommendations.
- After identifying your offshore development team capacity, set your organizational targets with your new team.
- A skilled dedicated team is aware of their roles and responsibilities, especially in equal task distribution.
- Outline task descriptions for vacant positions.
- Consider carefully the expertise and educational attainment of your offshore team, including the soft skills during the applicant's interview.
- Create a secured ODC plan. Identify who can have full access to the different facets of the project and the tasks that they are supposed to accomplish in specific time frame.
- Layout your specific development process management.
- Identify your methodology, listing the task distribution and delivery dates like software updates or progress reports.
- Use a project-tracking and management platform in project monitoring such as Asana or Jira.
- Inform your new team about the company’s goals and objectives in accomplishing the target project infrastructure. They should be aware of how important their roles will be in the company, who they should be directly interacting with, and to whom they should escalate any concerns or issues.
- The same principle applies to each team member. Everyone should be informed where to address inquiries, concerns or report issues to remedy problems right away.
- If you are collaborating with different teams, designate their assigned areas or enable them to share information within the team about the project details if necessary, for proper task execution and collaboration.
Your selected offshore dedicated development and in-house teams should work together for the common good and avoid any conflict or disagreements. Interacting with an ODC is not a difficult endeavor. A suitable selection of skillset and right service provider, everything becomes very handy.
A reliable ODC can undertake all administrative tasks in the proper execution of its responsibilities like seeking office space, staff management, recruitment of your actual team, and responding to all online financial and taxation inquiries.
Checklist in ODC creation
Below are the most essential steps to keep in mind when developing an ODC and recruiting developers.
1. Establish facilities
- A legal entity should be registered.
- Look for and conduct office rental.
- Identify the best interior design.
- Renovate your office.
- Purchase necessary furniture.
- Layout workstations.
- Link workstations to the internet.
- Develop a security signal system.
Before an ODC is created, a legal entity should be registered. After completing the documentation, create a working space that fits your needs and budget. Renovate your office based on your company’s needs, purchase all necessary furniture, and install the security signal systems to enable your ODC to work.
2. Plan out office devices and supplies
Office equipment and supplies include a printer, scanner, coffee machine, snacks, water, and first-aid kits (medicine box). Hardware and software are the best tools to execute the developers’ tasks. An ODC manager should buy all the needed equipment and office supplies as a priority to succeed in project completion.
Also, by being organized, everything should be in good condition so staff can work properly. Dedicated team developers will highly appreciate if office snacks and coffee machines are readily available. At the same time, it is highly recommended to have a first-aid box that can be easily found in case of emergencies.
3. Build a core team
An ODC is not merely focused on the developers. Other employees are needed to perform the center’s daily operational activities such as recruiter, HR manager, accountant, and lawyer.
4. Create a team brand
This involves incorporating office branding in branded cups, caps, and shirts. When everyone is aware of the company’s brand, this binds the team together while boosting the commitment among developers and ensuring job satisfaction.
5. Understand corporate culture
To establish rapport among employees, both in-house and offshore, you can plan team buildings and pizza parties. Review staff benefit packages to reward superior performance. Being part of the ODC team is only a part of the staff lives so it is best to value their contribution to the group and enrich further their career to enhance the corporate culture. Providing a benefits package for the staff is a way of letting them know how the company values the employees and keeping the best talent and valuing loyal staff to the company.
Best ODC locations
Below are some well-known destinations for seeking an ODC.
Asia. It remains a popular region that provides highly advanced technological growth and development with competitive and affordable software development rates. Also, most Asian developers have good English proficiency.
The Asian IT industry has a steady supply of developers with expertise in different sophisticated technologies. Aside from flexible time zones, Asian countries provide a client-friendly legal environment for building ODCs. Most of them have international exposure in outsourcing IT services worldwide.
India. It is considered as one of the pioneers in IT outsourcing. Since the 1980s, the Indian IT industry has been active in this field. Currently, it has a workforce of about three million software developers.
China. Despite having a young IT outsourcing background, it highlights a steady growth in recent years showcasing more business expansions. At present, many offshore IT firms have invested over $15 billion in the Chinese market in its ongoing projects and ODCs.
Eastern Europe. Many countries worldwide are set on Eastern Europe as their main outsourcing destination as a result of the region’s enormous number of skilled IT professionals, affordable software development rates, and available IT architecture (e.g. high-speed Internet).
Also, short travels and minor cultural differences bring faster collaboration and improved the productivity of outsourced dedicated development programmers from this region. Most preferred destinations in Eastern Europe are Poland and Ukraine.
Poland. Hiring Polish software developers is very cost-efficient. Also, they have high English proficiency, reduced living costs, and affordable tech education. Most Polish IT firms have a favorable legal environment for global IT companies with stringent intellectual property protection laws. Currently, the country has over 250,000 expert offshore software developers. This makes it the biggest outsourcing industry in the region.
Ukraine. This is another regional market highlighting increased growth and expansion based on highly skilled technical specialists. In 2018, over 160,000 developers provide their services in Ukraine. However, it has recorded an impressive industry growth rate of above 30% annually. This shows that soon the workforce will be the same as Poland. Also, the country provides a relaxed legal environment, better local infrastructure, and a growing number of well-trained IT workers.
