Thanks to the extensive experience and effective use of available means of communication, we have been successful in ensuring that the communications among all team members is seamless and virtually instantaneous, in the process significantly reducing time to market when compared to other typical global projects.

MARS's offshore arm has worked on engagements partnering with teams from the US, Latin America, Middle-East, Europe and different countries in the Asia-Pacific region in delivering solutions for different target groups for specific countries. Working with teams from different countries and cultures has helped MARS develop a process that is flexible and can be adapted to the specific needs of the engagement. MARS understands that the same solution may have to be rendered differently when delivering to a different target audience in a different country. This understanding helps in ensuring that the requirements are well understood for the specific audience(s) and in reducing the time and effort required in sharing this understanding.

MARS has developed an offshore model that has matured over the years, applying the learning from the experiences in various engagements and working with different partners - both service and product companies.

MARS uses processes and tools that address the critical success factors for engagements utilizing the onshore-offshore model.

MARS's onshore Engagement Manager will be responsible for the successful management of MARS's responsibilities in any given engagement. This "success manager" will have an offshore counterpart, who is an integral part of the delivery team and has clear responsibilities for project deliverables, is also entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the offshore team stays in synch with the client and the onsite team, and consistently delivers quality work. Over the last decade, MARS has developed this concept of "Success Managers" to help in the smooth execution of the engagements in the onsite-offshore model and to render seamless the process of communication between distributed components of the team. The picture above gives an overview of the role and the responsibilities of the success managers.

The onshore success manager is responsible for all client interactions, understanding project requirements, client approvals and sign-offs, change management, onsite team's project schedule and coordination with overall project schedule, issue resolution and overall quality of deliverables from the onsite and offshore team.

The offshore success manager is responsible for gaining a thorough understanding of the project requirements, offshore team's project schedule and coordination with overall project schedule, Issue resolution, change management, quality and timeliness of deliverables from the offshore team, and effective communication between onsite and offshore components.

Overall, between them, the success managers are an integral part of the project team with specific technical responsibilities, with the additional responsibility of ensuring the success of the engagement, thanks to their experience and seniority. Their goal is to stay on top of the progress of the overall engagement and the specific assignments within the project. They manage the schedules of interaction between the two teams and the client. They ensure that the distributed teams stay in sync and the client is up to date on the progress.

MARS has standard processes and tools for Schedule management, Issue Management and Change Control in the engagements that we have successfully executed. A central location on one of our servers is used as a central repository for sharing documents, work products etc. among the client and the teams.

MARS's change management process requires setting up of a change control board with members from the client team and the development team. All change requests are routed to this board. Based on an analysis and prioritization of the requested change, the impacts on effort and schedule are identified. The change control board then deliberates and determines if the requests are to be accepted in the current schedule or in subsequent phases. Once accepted, either a separate statement of work for the changes is drawn up, or addendums to the existing one are prepared and signed off on.

MARS can setup "disconnected" environments for the specific client's engagements. Where required, access to the client's staging and production environments can be through secure VPN access from these environments.

To enable smooth onshore-offshore collaboration, MARS has installed a high-speed broadband connectivity, backed up by dual ISDN connectivity. We also have video-conferencing facility in our offices, which is extensively used to communicate between our global clients and India. This infrastructure ensures that the offshore team is always connected to both the client and the onshore teams. MARS consultants use instant messenger chat, conference chat including voice chat, video conference, phone conferences, web conferences, documents, an online project communication system and email to ensure that everyone on the project team stays in synch.

Tools such as a web-based Project Communication System that integrates most of the above modes of communication (a preview of it is given in the picture below) are used through out the delivery. This tool facilitates seamless access to the project repository and the various tools in an integrated fashion that promotes efficiency and effectiveness in the collaboration between the teams. This, we believe, is a differentiating factor in ensuring success of offshore engagements.