I was caught off-guard yesterday when a couple of our sales staff told me that some people thought we were outsourcing (overseas development) because Ignition is relatively inexpensive. The short story is we don't outsource. The longer story is this... In the beginning I researched outsourcing and it was a 50/ 50 proposition, but I decided to hire locally. As you can see, it turned out to be a smart move. Two or three years ago we reconsidered outsourcing some software development and it looked pretty good on paper, but when we got down to the brass tacks and started interviewing we realized it wasn't going to work. You have to look at a broader picture when making a decision like that.
Here's the rest of the picture. Our programming requirements are intense and our feedback loop is fast. Our developers are all field savvy, even though they all come from the IT arena. Our interoffice communication is fast, accurate and bright ideas germinate spontaneously every single day. This is a priceless chemistry.
Also, we have a saying around here, "minimize the internal fiction." Our software architecture embodies this by deliberate design. So do our business processes. As soon as we start getting in the way of ourselves we clean it up right away. The bottom line is, I don't think outsourcing plays well with this idea, or our amazing chemistry.
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