IT all began here

No. 71, Millers Road, Bangalore, is a relatively lesser-known white building. Sona Towers, the three-decade-old building, is not very big, but not many people know that it was here that the American IT major Texas Instruments (TI) established its satellite up-linking facility in 1985. It was the first private up-linking facility set up by an IT company in India. The facility set a benchmark for India's outsourcing industry, and as a global player in the IT services space. A huge banyan tree stands near the entrance of the building as a testimony to the historic significance in India's IT revolution.

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How the Presidential Election Will Impact IT Outsourcing

The issue of offshore outsourcing and its impact on American jobs has been front and center throughout the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. But as election day draws near, both President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are singing more or less the same tune on the subject-offshoring is bad; job creation is good.

But what will be the actual impact of the presidential election on offshoring and outsourcing in general? Will a Romney administration set a different tone on the subject of offshore job creation if he takes office?

Would a second Obama term result in new taxes on offshoring or increased skilled worker visa requirements or restrictions? Will either candidate's policies encourage domestic sourcing? And what's to come for public sector outsourcing at a time when federal, state and local governments are under increasing cost pressures?

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10 Key Questions to Assess Application Outsourcing Maturity

As more companies look to external IT service providers to help them both innovate and optimize, many are initially surprised by the amount of change required for a relationship to work successfully -- issues that extend well beyond onboarding supplemental, temporary staff. Many companies think that the key to outsourcing success is selecting the right partner, but even the best partner will disappoint you if you are not prepared and organized for an outsourcing arrangement.

In Forrester's Services Sourcing Playbook research, my colleagues and I maintain that it is critical for companies embarking on an outsourcing journey or trying to optimize their existing outsourcing relationships to ask themselves the following 10 questions in order to assess maturity and identify weaknesses. Without effective project and program management, internal process consistency, management and change control processes, and a mature vendor management function, it will be difficult -- or nearly impossible -- for organizations to work with external IT services suppliers effectively.

1. Project management track record.
2. Project management expertise.
3. Central program management.
4. Communication and collaboration tools.
5. Internal process consistency.
6. Software development process maturity.
7. Requirements definitions and management capability.
8. Managing to SLAs.
9. User acceptance testing rigor.
10. Vendor management function.

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