BANGALORE: The first Web site to offer a model that offers companies around
the world to find suitable software firms to do projects online will enter India
in March by setting up a 100 per cent subsidiary in Chennai. The firm intends to
look out for Indian software firms who are willing to take up projects from
overseas companies develop the same online.
According to ITsquare.com officials, the company was in the process of developing
its own project management and communication tools, which would be released
shortly.
The Web site allows companies to post their request for software firms by
giving details of their projects and the kind of expertise required. ITsquare.com,
which has a list of software firms, will help find the firm that fits the bill.
The Chennai unit of ITsquare.com will also oversea the smooth transition of
projects outsourced to Indian vendors. According to an ITsquare.com official, firms
in the US were not able to get full advantage of outsourcing to vendors in India
and at the same time, Indian firms spent huge marketing dollars on marketing
their services in the US. "ITsquare.com reduces this gap between the US
client firms and Indian vendors and assures clients for timely delivery of their
projects and at the same time provides Indian development firms with vast
opportunities," he added.
According to company officials, ITsquare.com currently has about 1,400 software
development firms registered as vendors. Out of which, about 70 per cent are
from the US, 27 per cent from India and rest are from other parts of the world.
It targets mid-size projects in the range of $20,000 to $300,000. "The
reason behind this is, these are the projects that are most hurt by the current
software development model. These projects are too small for big integrators and
clients pay too much to bigger companies to get it done. Though these projects
are very crucial, are left with very few resources. Clients have difficulties
finding the right vendors for these projects and despite of high development
costs these projects are never on time and sometimes are even big failure,"
pointed out the official. He addded that the company hoped to get a couple of
projects in seven figure to go through its site that are currently in the
evaluation stage." There is no cost to clients for this service, only
finalize vendor pays transaction fee of 3-15 per cent depending upon the size of
the project, pointed out the official.
The project management tool, which the company plans to release next month,
will allow the client to regularly monitor the development of the project online
through ITsquare.com Web site. "Every week, the client can log on to the site
to check the development of the project and compare it to the plan schedule.