Scenario on Technology

A. Issues the Company Would Encounter By Outsourcing Research and Development
to India
The outsourcing of technological activities and processes to the offshore company in
India is not new to the technological industry. This is intended to respond to the variations in
demand that are unpredictable and unforeseeable (Alsudairi & Dwivedi, 2010). The North
Carolina Company has opted to outsource their technology and indeed, supply it to their
customers as a way of saving on their labor costs. Additionally, they have taken the advantage of
the specialized knowledge of suppliers in India to give their customers quality products that are
competitive in the market. More importantly, according to Stanko & Calantone (2011), the
availability of infrastructural necessities in the production of the current technological
advancements has been one of those reasons that have made it inevitable for the North Carolina
Company to outsource its products relating to information technology.
Outsourcing of research and development such as the one that has been done by the
company in the present scenario that deals in the creation of antivirus is for the benefit of the
North Carolina office. In this regard, they outsourced their smartphone antivirus product in India
with the aim of cutting on costs and getting the best from their operating system in offshore
country. However, there are several issues that the company in North Carolina would have to
deal with because of their decision to outsource research and development from the Indian
market. These issues are related to the technological standards existing in the Indian branch, the
infrastructure that will be used in the transfer of this antivirus as well as the one used in the
creation of that antivirus. Despite the managers of the two development systems residing in
North Carolina, there will be issues of trust, quality, and the ownership of intellectual property

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rights (Lacity et al., 2010). The issues that will arise out of the outsourcing of the smartphone
antivirus product in India by the North Carolina Company in relation to technological standards
and infrastructure will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

1. Technology Standards
   India is estimated to be the leader in global software work, with average annual software
   export growth of more than 40% in 1990s. While initial India’s software industry development
   was primarily based on bodyshopping work at U.S. firms’ onsite, recently, the trend has
   increased the Indian firms in conducting software development for American clients offshore in
   India. The companies in India involved in IT outsourcing will provide high quality work to North
   Carolina, complying with the ISO & SEI-CMM standards and meeting international standard. 75
   % of SEI-CMM Level 5 companies in the whole world are located in India, and offshore
   outsourcing to India will offer quality IT outsourcing to North Carolina as India furnishes their
   services well.
   There is an existing issue of India 15 years of “.com boom”. In 1990s, everyone was
   becoming a computer engineer or programmer in India through joining six months school and
   later employed in .com companies as computer people. This has given rise to people with
   software engineers yet they are not close to that title.
   Technologies in India offer excellent software solutions. North Carolina will need to
   make applications including; System Migration, Maintaining Legacy system, Business Process
   re-engineering, ecommerce, System integration and others. It will also face the India pride in IT
   outsourcing facilities that are competing with world quality service providers and that is the
   reason the management is refers IT outsourcing from the country. The company in Carolina
   would have to encounter and indeed address is the technology quality. In this regard, the

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standards of technology that are acceptable in India might not be the same standards that will be
accepted in North Carolina (Hurel et al., 2014).
Another issue for the Carolina Company to consider is Indian government policies.
Information technology is among the top 5 priority Indian industries making it a national agenda
and policies have been framed to receive maximum importance of IT sourcing in the country.
The team should consider the new National Telecom Policy which invites which is inviting new
participants in the telecom industry. The deregulation initiatives and liberalization taken by the
government aims in supporting integration and growth with the global economy. The
consideration of the reforms will enable Carolina in entry of Indian market.
The 2000 IT bill gives a legal framework that recognizes electronic contracts, electronic
filing of documents and prevention of computer crime. The government together with
NASSCOM is playing a great role of protecting IT sector. Another issue of consideration is
stable government that facilitating IT growth. The government pro IT has policies, taxation,
power, economy, GDP growth, industrial park special zones, and telecom has helped the
communication sector. Indian government has shown support to software firms and provides all
the outsourcing required facilities and will help Carolina to flourish and will play a major role in
the company’s success in IT outsourcing.
The other issue that is related to the technology standards is the fact that the North
Carolina management will not directly monitor the operations in the Indian company that will
create the antivirus. In this regard, they will not be able to check the technology that is used in
the creation of this antivirus. All they will get is the complete product without the knowledge of
the making processes. As a result, they will not be able to claim the patent rights of the smart
phone antivirus. Even more, they will not have the knowledge about how that particular product

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was made in the Indian company. This lack of monitoring might lead to the use of substandard
technology in the creation of the product. In any case, any outsourcing of research and
development does not give the North Carolina outsourcing; the knowledge about how the
antivirus outsourced is made and operated. As such, the company will keep on offshoring the
product unless they decide to make in or rather to directly involve their employees in the making
and creation of the product. The presence of the two managements; one in North Carolina and
the other one in India, is a ground for the use of low technology standards. Despite the two teams
working in unison, there is a probability that the team in North Carolina and that in the Indian
market will have two sets of technology standards that they will use. This indifference in
standards does not go well with the business.
The company in North Carolina will, therefore, have to address this problem of the
standards of technology that will be observed in the creation of the outsourced product. In any
case, any differences in technology standards between the two countries will lead to the
compromise on the quality of products that will be produced in the two countries. Ultimately, the
customers will not get the products of high quality that they want for protecting the smartphones
from antivirus. Another issue to be considered is India tax system to know the process and
amount. There is a rising negative issue to consider, Indian IT outsourcing is a business
commodity without innovation and less to offer rather than questionable rate savings.

2. Infrastructure
   In the present scenario, infrastructure refers to the IT framework that will be used in the
   creation of the product as well as the methods that will ensure that the processes for the creation
   and transfer from the Indian plant to the North Carolina plant are safe and secure. The E1 line
   that regularly provides 2Mbps of connectivity will be very slow compared to the global speed

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that exists (Gopal & Gosain, 2010). In this regard, the North Carolina Company will have to
encounter the slow connectivity between the two plants. The effects of this slow connectivity are
that information will not be well transmitted from India to North Carolina. This speed is
definitely low considering that there is a higher speed that can be very efficient and fast for the
two companies.
The security infrastructure in the IT department between the two countries is also an issue
that will be encountered in outsourcing the research and development of the antivirus product.
The authentication of the remote users or hosts might not be strong. This will, therefore, make
the VPNs susceptible to attacks from hackers and other people with ulterior motives. The
mechanisms that will be used for the hiding /masking of information from attackers might not be
the best for the two companies. Therefore, according to Gopal & Gosain (2010), if the network is
hacked and confidential information gets into the hands of unauthorized third parties, the
intellectual expertise used in the manufacture of the antivirus might be stolen and similar
products made. Additionally, the public key encryption that will be used in redirecting the
additional traffic will be an issue that must be addressed. Indeed, the security of the network
between the two countries must be addressed to ensure that it is not susceptible to attacks.
The backup infrastructure will form the third infrastructural issue that the company would
encounter. In this regard, the backup generators that will provide power in case of an outage only
come into play after two hours of blackout. The major question in this case lies with the status of
the IT infrastructure in between these two hours of outage. The company would lose a lot from
the time that the outage would occur and the time that the backup generators would be put on.
These costs will be related to the stalling of the operations of the company and the risks that are
evident during those times. Despite the presence of a backup, there is likelihood that information

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might be lost. More importantly, the person-hours that will not be under productive activities
during blackouts will costs the company eventually
Needed Revisions

Based on the analysis of the technology standards and infrastructure above, there are
several revisions that the company needs to make sure that their outsourcing program is up to the
standards. In this regard, there is a need for setting out uniform technology standards between the
two plants in North Carolina and in India. In this regard, the standards if technology that is used
in the North Carolina office should be transferred to the Indian plant so that there is uniformity in
the creation of the antivirus product in the two countries. The other revision lies in the
sanctioning of two research and development departments in the two countries. The net effects of
this are that each department will have intellectual property rights that are different from each
other (Pilat et al., 2009). After their research and development, the ideas and transformations that
they get will not be the same in the two countries. Therefore, the company needs to finds a way
of combining the two research and development departments so that any research and
developments they make are uniform in the two countries
On the issue of infrastructure, there is need for a backup generator that is automatically
on when there is power outage. Instead of availing the backup two hours after the outage, the
backup generators should automatically be put on when there is a blackout. This would ensure
that there are no disruptions in the course of the work (Pilat et al., 2009). Additionally, there
would be not time lost between the time that the outage has occurred and the time that the
generators would be put on. The IT infrastructure should also be considered and revised. In this
regard, they should ensure that the connectivity speed is high and that the connectivity
framework is safe and secure from intrusion by any unauthorized persons. This will protect the

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privacy of their information and communications. More importantly, communication will be fast
between the two centers in the two different countries.
Recommended Additional Technologies to Help the Company Outsource To India
One of the most critical additional technologies is the use of a more secure connectivity
framework for communication between the two countries. The security of their systems is critical
in keeping their information safe and secures (Kite, 2012). The use of private networking as
opposed to public is a good way of protecting the company’s information. However, there is a
need for further additional technology measures that will secure the communication between the
two servers. As such, in addition to the firewall-to-firewall virtual private network (VPN)
between the North Carolina and India offices, the company should consider deploying the Public
Key Infrastructure and SSL/TLS Encryption to validate the different entities to one another
(Kite, 2012). Specifically, this additional technology would ensure that man in the middle attacks
is negated. In this regard, no individual would be able to impersonate another after the
installation of this additional security measure. Additionally, they should use a speed of at least
4Mbps, which is faster than the proposed 2Mbps. This will ensure that their correspondences are
faster and clearer. The company should incorporate cloud saving where the information is safe
and can be retrieved at any place. Modern technologies such as Skype and video business calls
should be introduce. Switching to Skype for business leads to low cost call including
international calls and will save on business cost without skimming the services. Instant
messaging in Skype is a perfect tool to keep in touch with colleagues. It can be used to check
colleagues’ progress, sending documents and asking questions on ongoing projects. Skype video
call is replacing face to face and better is the Skype group video calling that allows a or less
people to conduct board meetings.

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a) The Technology Standards and Best Practices That Will Aid in the Company’s
Outsourcing Efforts
In outsourcing the smartphone antivirus product, there are several aspects the North
Carolina company should abide by which are the best practices in the IT market. In this regard,
the third party supplier (India) should be able to provide a better quality of services than those,
which can be provided internally in North Carolina (Sparrow, 2012). Additionally, the third party
must be able to abide by the technological standards that the North Carolina Company is
required to abide by. Verification should be made on whether the Indian company provides the
services that it claims to provide. More importantly, according to Sparrow (2012), the North
Carolina Company should consider the repercussions that would arise in case the Indian
organization fails to deliver the quality smartphone antivirus as originally agreed. The Cloud
Security Alliance opines that the outsourcing of technology should not be related to the
governance security related functions. Additionally, the outsourcing should be secure enough
and of higher quality than that which could be obtained locally. The security of the infrastructure
should be a core determination of whether the North Carolina company should outsource or not.
More importantly, there should be a guarantee that the product outsourced is the one that was
signed for in the service level agreement (SLA). The IT services is prevalent especially the use
of cloud computing which abstracts technology from the user who are unaware of technologies
that are delivering services around them. Another strategy and objective is cyber security to
ensure information is safe and cannot be retrieved or hacked.
C. How to Address Two Cultural Issues As the Company Begins To Do Business
between India and North Carolina

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The cultural issues between North Carolina and India could impede the smooth business
relationship between the two countries. As such, it is critical that these cultural differences are
addressed in a somber and respectful manner. Specifically, the two countries should appreciate
their cultural differences and come to an agreement of the culture that they will adopt. In this
regard, they can opt to adopt the Indian culture, the North Carolina culture, or a culture that is
different from the two(Young & Burgess, 2010). This should be through consensus and a
compromise between the two. The solution to the cultural issues would provide a good business
environment and hence ensure that there is no conflict when the real business begins.
Additionally, it will iron out any differences that might arise because of the cultural orientation
of either party. More importantly, a good business relationship between the two is pegged on the
ability to understand and appreciate their cultural differences.
The corporate structure in India is a hierarchical society meaning that that the Indian
mindset in business is also hierarchical. This is reality and not a positive or negative thing, the
problem is arising due to many Western companies form of forming a flatter structure to the
operations of Indians. In India, attrition rates are high the BPO and KPO environments. This is
may be an issue when there is need to build in-depth corporate, product or client knowledge
within the Indian teams and the high employee turn out causes high cost. The communicational
style is an issue as Americans are blunt and calls for things to be done which is in contrary with
the Indian who are reserved, less direct and polite. Indian employee cannot question their boss.
Communication is another issue due to the time difference between India and USA. With twelve
hours Pacific Time difference, there is no reasonable time to communicate with the other team
(Young & Burgess, 2010). Another cultural issue is that Indian write less and is thus prone to
forgetfulness and they thus require revisits of same thing.

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References

Alsudairi, M., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2010). A multi-disciplinary profile of IS/IT outsourcing
research. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 23(2), 215-258.
Gopal, A., & Gosain, S. (2010). Research note-The role of organizational controls and boundary
spanning in software development outsourcing: Implications for project performance.
Information Systems Research, 21(4), 960-982.
Hurel, G., Badonnel, R., Lahmadi, A., & Festor, O. (2014). Outsourcing Mobile security in the
cloud. In Monitoring and Securing Virtualized Networks and Services (pp. 69-73).
Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Kite, G. (2012). The impact of information technology outsourcing on productivity and output:
new evidence from India. Procedia Economics and Finance, 1, 239-248.
Lacity, M. C., Khan, S., Yan, A., & Willcocks, L. P. (2010). A review of the IT outsourcing
empirical literature and future research directions. Journal of Information technology,
25(4), 395-433.
Lacity, M. C., Khan, S., Yan, A., & Willcocks, L. P. (2010). A review of the IT outsourcing
empirical literature and future research directions. Journal of Information technology,
25(4), 395-433.
Pilat, D., De Backer, K. O. E. N., Basri, E., Box, S., & Cervantes, M. (2009). The development
of global innovation networks and the transfer of knowledge. Innovation and Growth
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Stanko, M. A., & Calantone, R. J. (2011). Controversy in innovation outsourcing research:
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