Traditionally outsourcing and especially offshore outsourcing dealt with work that was typically not mission critical. In recent times, this trend is changing rapidly. Independent Software Vendors and other companies (whose core business is not IT) are increasingly using offshore development centers as their primary workplace to build new products and applications.

While offshoring development of mission critical products, several risks need to be addressed

Risks in intellectual property ownership

Risk arising due to perceived loss of control

Geo-political risks

Inadequate quality and missing market deadlines (Perhaps the most prominent risk)

This whitepaper focuses on how to turn the risk of "Inadequate quality and missing market deadlines"

For many human resources (HR) departments throughout the country, knowledge management (KM) is a daunting, yet highly necessary task. With the world of work changing as fast as the technology that drives it, HR has to change its workforce staffing strategies if the company is to remain competitive.

As a member of the first group of foreign companies entering mainland China, Hewlett-Packard (HP), a fortune 11 company with businesses in 170 countries, 150, 000 employees, and $86 Billion in revenue, has been a trend setter for its management practices. HP took the lead in establishing an effective KM program with the belief that in a knowledge era the focus of management has to shift from finance, operation and labor to knowledge workers. For example, in a KM-friendly environment p

There are two distinct types of workplace knowledge critical to an organization's survival-- tacit knowledge (often described as either deep smarts or business smarts), and explicit knowledge. Alarmingly, around the nation, the deep smarts of our organizations are walking out the door. And with the expected departure of baby boomers over the next four years, the problem is expected to get even worse.

Tacit Knowledge (Deep Smarts)

Tacit knowledge (deep smarts) are the contents in the heads of experts that enable them to make swift, wise decisions based on years of experience. It is knowledge stemming from individual experiences, actions, subjective judgments, hunches, intuitions, values, and ideas. Deep smarts constitute practice-based wisdom. Experience defines us profession

Today, most people pay little attention to social or business etiquette. While some elements of traditional etiquette may seem dates and pre-"high tech", they are worth reviewing - and incorporating into your daily business life.

Telephone calls.

With the exception of "cold calls", all calls received should be returned within no more than twenty-four hours. This applies to "internal" and "external" calls. Of course, calls to customers - current and potential - should be returned first.

Office Visits

When visiting someone's office, whether a customer, boss or "internal" customer, take no more time than is absolutely necessary. Treat other's time as if it were your own.

Bids

When you bid on a job, follow-up directly with the potential client or cust