'The best outsourcing firm for us in general'

Why did you choose Infosys to outsource this project?



We became aware of Infosys through a cold call by its sales team. At the time, we were looking at American/Indian outsourcers. I was quite impressed by the thoroughness and apparent quality of the Infosys presentation during the cold call, and began to investigate the firm further. As a result of that investigation, I became convinced Infosys was the best outsourcing firm for us in general.

In what ways did outsourcing work to Infosys help you?



I don’t think we could have done this project in the time allotted or with the quality achieved without Infosys. We are a mid-market firm, and we really benefited from the CMM Level 5 processes of Infosys. And Infosys used its relationship with Microsoft to assure that the .Net technology and the SQL Server database would be good choices given our size.

How did outsourcing to Infosys help you in cost saving?



Infosys was certainly less expensive than if we had executed this project in the United States. But we quickly learned that the lower billing rates were a small part of the cost savings of the project. We have become real believers in quality work, from requirements gathering through UAT. We now understand that it’s the project discipline and processes of Infosys that were responsible for the bulk of the savings.

What was your experience and comfort level in interacting with an Indian company?



This was one of the early projects we did with Infosys. Although I was already comfortable with using an Indian contractor, it was a new experience for most of my colleagues on this project. But I can honestly say that each of them has enjoyed working with Infosys, and each of them has developed a great respect for the people and work of Infosys. I think that those of us who traveled to India to see Infosys during the course of the project gained an even clearer understanding of why Infosys people and its methodology produces excellent results. The onshore-offshore model has been honed so much that it seems like the whole development team is actually in the US.

What were the key SLA parameters you were looking at in the agreement?



We knew that the quality would be in the work since Infosys is a CMM Level 5 certified developer. So the SLAs we were concerned about centered on cost and time of delivery. Infosys was very responsive on both of those points.

All told, this has been a very good experience for SCI. As a mid-tier US company, SCI would have a bit of a harder time than larger US enterprises approaching the CMM Level 4 or 5 status. Infosys permitted us to enjoy the fruits of that status much earlier than if we tried to grow into it ourselves.