Computer programmers write, test, and maintain the detailed instructions, called programs or at higher-level software, that lays down a set of instruction for computers that it must follow to perform some specific function. They also conceive, design, and test
logical structures for solving problems by computer. They develop and write computer programs to store, locate and retrieve specific documents, data, and information. They may program websites too.

They do this by converting project specifications and statement of problems and procedures to detailed logical charts for coding into computer language.

To be an efficient programmer, one must possess logically thinking capability apart from having a deep-rooted motivation, willingness from the bottom of the heart to work and needs integrity, productivity, team spirit and efficient time management.

1. Reading and writing capability:

An efficient programmer always reads the instructions and needs mentioned in the requirement carefully before proceeding to any step. It is important to understand the work related documents thoroughly. Communicating effectively with others in writing as indicated by the needs of the audience.

2. Designing and sequencing:

This step involves a programmer to be able to think what should come sequentially after other beforehand? What should happen after this has happened or if this particular situation arises? Before a programmer sits to write the actual code he must be able to visualize and design on paper the actual flow of the instructions in the form of flow chart. Candidates who can easily grasp the concepts behind a flow chart will tend to have an easier time understanding and developing a computer program, since they will have a deeper understanding of the computational processes that are involved.

3. Syntax:

Every language has a set pattern to write a program in it, just like the French language has a set pattern of framing a sentence, a word for expressing something. This in computer language is said as the syntax that is the way of writing the program in a language. A
computer programmer must be able to demonstrate the ability to think logically and to recognize patterns that exist in apparent chaos.

4. Logically thinking capability:

One doesn't have to be a great mathematician or physician while solving a computer problem. It is just the logical ability of the programmer to structure or classify the multiple pieces of the information and to troubleshoot a computer process in the manner, as
they should have happened sequentially otherwise. That is deductive reasoning. And in doing this, information technology shares the same problem-solving principles that form the core of math and logic.

5. Miscellaneous:

A little knowledge about the electronic circuit boards, processors and other general information can add more efficiency to programmers working style and code writing capability. How so ever strong your programming skills might be, everything
fails when you cannot deliver efficiently to others. Therefore it is must for a programmer to have a good ability to communicate the information and ideas to others, properly and clearly. Similarly he must be able to understand the information and ideas presented
through spoken words and sentences and the need of the program to be written down.

Thus a programmers ability and creativity to generate a program or may be its smallest unit can be completely measured by estimating the above skills.

Outsourcing basically means the delegation of tasks or jobs from a company to some external entity. Most recently, it has come to mean the elimination of native staff to staff overseas, where salaries are markedly lower.

It became popular as business buzzword since 1990's, from there after it has slowly got transformed to business process outsourcing where whole business processes are outsourced, especially in the software development and IT sector, which account for the highest number of figures in outsourcing of jobs.

The popular destinations are of course India and China for all those companies that keep on hunting for a vendor that could give them cheapest yet best of the results. IM, Hewlett Packward and Novell are some examples of such companies. Smaller business also takes advantage of freelancing on the internet to get similar projects done by offshore developers at minimum costs.

Such large amount of heavy outsourcing of jobs to offshore destinations has become possible by the invention of high-speed communication links that allows engineers and managers to communicate on real time basis. For an offshore company, you can monitor the software development process and project milestones on an up-to-the minute basis.

A side effect of this practice is now visible. It has lead to domestic unemployment of thousands of high-tech professionals, many of whom were just passed outs and have joined these institutions looking at the boom in the IT industry.

Though outsourcing has proved beneficial for many companies, it has been also looked up as a ruinous decision for others. In this mixed kind of reaction, while few companies complained of being delivered for services they never asked for, or with very poor quality work than what they expected, while others showed their great satisfaction in what their offshore clients have provide them with.

Reaction by some US customers has also been negative. Many customers have complained of an inability to effectively communicate with their support staff, which they outsourced to India, because of their heavy Indian accents.

Software projects are inherently complex, risky and require careful planning. With the greed of earning more profits, many companies have stepped out of their nations to opt for the cheaper highly skilled labor. While many of them have found satisfaction with the quality work they found here, the others have moved back to their nations or to their other destinations searching for the client that can come up to their expectations. But in all this, the jobs that have moved out have created unemployment and hence slowing down of
the economic growth in our own country. The domestic workers feel pressure and depression for their jobs being moved out by their employers.

Thus it can be thought of a situation where in the wish to earn more, we are calling those times where unemployment and economic recession is on growth with in our own country due to our self-created factors.

How does one consider whether a firm is need for outsourcing or not?

What are the factors that make outsourcing a better option than making the product? What are the risks involved in outsourcing? What part of the work should be outsourced? These are the major issues which one had to deal with before going for outsourcing.

This is where outsourcing reports, which help us in taking these decisions, come to our rescue. There are some companies which go through the details of our company and prepare a report which help us decide these issues.

There are other reports also available which are outsourcing reports of some companies. These help in analyzing the situations in which these companies opted for outsourcing and how fruitful there venture was. They also address the issues of the difficulties faced during this venture.

The reports primarily help us in evaluating our objectives and establish whether outsourcing can bring a boost in our business or not. Various other offshore outsourcing reports of other companies are analyzed and comparisons are drawn to the current situation. Also addressed are the issues of the identification of the processes which are better not to be outsourced and developed in-house.

The various advantages of outsourcing like cheap but skilled work-force are compared to its disadvantages and assessments are made. These reports are also helpful in determine the amount of savings by outsourcing the job. It is also seen that which providers of a particular service are best in the case of the company in focus. Various alternatives are suggested and the best are recommended.

These Offshore Outsourcing Reports also deal with the issues of Outsourcing management and the various factors surrounding it. Making the offshore relationships last is also one of the major issues. Thus we can conclude by saying that Offshore Outsourcing Reports are a great tool for us to access the various factors governing our decision to outsource.

Offshoring Software is one of the biggest growing Businesses these days. Most of the Top Shots in the industry outsource projects. While outsourcing software one should keep in mind that the successful completion of the software depends on a lot of factors and one should analyze these factors before outsourcing projects.

The biggest and the most important issue is to choose the right firm or freelancer for the project. Along with it there are other issues which need to be addressed before as well as during the project is in progress.

Let's go through a few important of these issues in brief here:

1. A Very Strong and Project Centric Approach: As far as the Project is possible one should know what the exact requirements are. It is usually best to document the requirements and make sure that the offshore firm completely understands it. This should be as the
guideline for the project.

2. Continuous and Focused Communication: It is a very healthy practice to be in constant touch with the offshore firm. Reports should be sought after a period of time so as to know what the progress of the project actually is. This helps one not only keep track of the project but also avoids unnecessary hassles later on. There can be circumstances when the project goes haywire if one does not properly track it.

3. Risk Management: The software projects are always somewhat risky. The risks can be related to the schedule, the pricing or the deliverables. It is always a good practice to make all these assessments before hand. It is always a nice practice to make sure that the project is delivered in a phased manner. The various features can be delivered one by one and testing can be carried out separately for each feature.

4. Experience: While handling the software projects it is always an advantage that there is some experience in handling such projects before. This helps one in knowing that whether the project is on the right track or not.

5. Testing: This is one of the most important issues as the projects need to be properly tested before implementation. There are various phases of testing such as Alpha Testing and Beta Testing wherein the stability of the project is judged.

With all these factors in mind one can easily make the best out of offshore outsourcing projects.

With the rise of globalization, many companies have turned towards outsourcing. Other driving factors behind this were the dot-com crash of the 21st century and the economic recession following the events of September 11, 2001.

Many companies suffered heavy economic losses after that and hence, looked for less expensive avenues of development and support.

Outsourcing involves a considerable degree of two way information exchange and co-ordination for e.g., buying products from a supplier cannot be termed as outsourcing, but merely a vendor relationship. Outsourcing has now become a critical phase in the administrative cycle of a firm. Choosing a proper partner offshore has thus become an issue of monumental importance. The client of course is free to choose areas for outsourcing and the companies who could be entrusted for developing their business processes. Deciding the areas to outsource and whom to outsource is thus a crucial decision. Outsourcing increasingly has become a strategic choice for most companies to make in order to cut down on the costs while getting quality services.

This is where the role of consultancies begins. An outsourcing consultant acts as a complete solutions package for any firm taking their services. They not only identify the areas, which are suitable for outsourcing but also pinpoint the quality clients offshore. These consulting firms abound on both the sides of the shore. Offshore Outsourcing Consulting companies today wear different hats to ensure that the benefits of seamless transition are transferred to companies looking at going Offshore. The company's role becomes complementary to the customer's objectives. These companies are usually "been there, done that" and they can do it again for their customers. Customers benefit from their expertise in the area as this allows solutions to get transferred to in a most optimal time
frame.

Another benefit of working with consulting firms is the transfer of local knowledge, information and best practices. In a successful Offshore Consulting relationship, consultants become effective communication channels between front line workers and customers, and the leaders of the company or organization. They enable a firm to maintain the healthiest possible relationship with its offshore clients while ensuring that the targets are met within the time frames and quality standards are maintained.

In today's highly competitive world, management is forced to aggressively pursue ways to achieve efficiencies, improve customer services and save money, in the most tempting way of which is to outsource all non-core business processes and activities. Outsourcing
helps company to reduce or stabilize the costs. Access advanced technology, compensate for a task of skilled IT workers, improve business efficiency and remain competitive in market place.

While outsourcing, several key factors must be considered and one should not jump into the vendor selection process without taking the necessary steps to arm them with a clear definition of the desired relationship.

A decision solely based on cost cut out may result in the waste of the energy, and probably a reason to regret later. While outsourcing a business process, one must list up the criteria a vendor must possess before handing him over the contract. Internal interviews with the managers of the company can give the correct judgment if actually company needs outsourcing or its just following of the fashion in the market. Deciding the nature of the
outsourcing required, temporary or permanent should be the next step.

After this, a generic profile of the supplier must be written down based on the information gathered from the internal interviews and management's consensus, following which a list describing the criteria a vendor must qualify to be a perfect candidate for your business must be developed.

Once the above work is being done and company is clear with what it is looking for in his vendor, a clear contract must be written down. Remember the more effort an organization puts in identifying their specific requirements and the more flexible and easy contract
it is, the more effective and efficient outsourcing business process will be.

The contract must outline the essential details of the desired relationship. Make sure your company owns the source code for the final product. Flexibility in re-negotiating pricing and terms, especially with the changing business needs with time is what one should not forget even by mistake or results will be soon show their impact after you sign up the contract. Make sure how the success of the project will be measured. Who will manage the relationship is one point that not only asks for your serious attention, but a deep thought as it will greatly affect the quality of result you can achieve. Surveys indicate that managers, IT's and CIO's and others involved in the processes like legal and purchasing officers are inadequately equipped to make decisions on outsourcing. And last but not the least, be sure how will the disputes between the two sides, if any occur later in future, will be settled.

We all desire to add the success stories in whatever area we work over, but remember success doesn't come that easily. The successful relationship of outsourcing management solely depends on the way requirements are defined, the way objectives are laid, the way vendor is chosen and the way service level agreement is written. Make sure you give yourself enough time to set up the relationship. You rush up today and you land nowhere, because you earn what you invest.

Outsourcing in general can be defined as passing of service provision or production to another internal or external party. The chief reason of outsourcing is to reduce capital expenditure over a business process. Also management gets more time to concentrate over core competencies. This also reduces the dependency upon internal resources and increases the flexibility to meet the changing business and commercial conditions.

Even though several other reasons can be listed up in favor of outsourcing, one must not overlook the disadvantages of it.

By outsourcing a business process, we tend to loose the managerial control. This happens because it is harder to manage the outsourcing service provider as compare to managing one's own employees. Also because we generally tend to skip (or miss to calculate) the
potential hidden costs of outsourcing which includes legal costs of putting together a contract between companies and time spent on coordinating the contracts, we feel that outsourcing reduces the overall expenditure of a business process, one of the major reasons why a company goes for outsourcing. This hidden and missed out costs of outsourcing is hard to predict causing overall costs to be underestimated.

Another disadvantage is that outsourcing can also prove to be a threat to the security and confidentiality of issues of a company. If your company is outsourcing business process such as payroll, confidential information such as salary will be known to the outsourcing service provider. Therefore one must be very careful in choosing which business process to outsource and which one not.

Outsourcing may also result into the possible loss of flexibility in reacting to changing business conditions, lack of internal and external customer focus and sharing cost savings. Loss of internally generated talent is yet another problem associated with the outsourcing as it may hamper the growth of an employee by depriving him from the experience he would have gained by handling the business issue himself then by passing it over to some other external party.

Thus before a company decides to outsource its business process, it must examine all the factors carefully. It may not happen that outsourcing becomes a reason for company to regret later.

With the growing fashion and dependency on offshore outsourcing,  many countries of Eastern Europe has come up as an alternative to traditional offshore destinations. A highly skilled workforce,  shorter journey times, smaller time-zone differences, European
language skills and western culture all contribute to this  attraction.

As an impact of it, many IT executives in the US and Western Europe have moved to Eastern Europe for outsourcing and system and development needs. The major work areas in Eastern Europe include senior managers, decision makers, business consultants and advisors.

Although the country (Eastern Europe) currently has a small number of offshore projects, it promises to rise up in near future with the upcoming markets like Czech Republic taking third place after India and China in offshore outsourcing. The other attractive offshore work centers in Eastern Europe include Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and the Baltic.

These markets not only offer low cost skilled labor force, but also an attractive regulatory environment with a close proximity and cultural ties to Western Europe. The other advantages of moving to Eastern Europe offshore markets are connected to its political
stability, government commitment to the industry, highly skilled labor force and minimal socio-cultural differences found in these countries. Many companies also hold the view that work performed in Eastern European countries is much more scientifically intensive than
that which is produced in other markets.

Even though India has earned for itself a reputation worldwide as leading outsourcing destination, the political conditions of country like the ongoing conflict between India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, have forced the companies to look for an alternative or at least a second source. Eastern Europe has highly efficient school system that adds
thousands of skilled labor every year to its professionals. They deliver faster and higher quality solutions at lower costs.

Eastern Europe is still too far to be hit by the boom of offshore outsourcing that is seen in the top ranking markets of the world and hence, has been successfully able to leave an unmarked impression over its customers, especially the Western countries that have worked with the partners of Eastern Europe recently have been impressed by their professionalism and timelessness.

Thus we can say that Eastern European countries are creating a buzz in the outsourcing industry.

Undoubtedly India forms the world's biggest back office to date, but the time when China will take over the World outsourcing is not very far.

It is because of the spectacular economic success of China evident from its magnificent GDP growth of 12% in April 2003 and its total import export value that accounts to $ US 620.70billion in 2002.

Not only this, [TAG-Tec]China[/TAG-Tec] has attained the status of being only country in the world with the great economic capacity and massive skilled technology resource pool. It offers the world class technology talent at the lowest costs in the world in whatever business one can think of manufacturing, trade, investments, technology, outsourcing and lot more.

1. Growth in technical education

• There are 400,000 professionals working in China currently and the country produces 50,000 to 1000,000 more every year.
• To promote the technical education, the government has opened radio and television universities in addition to traditional schools.

2. Cheap Labor

• China offers savings up to five times as compared to U.S
• The labor is available at half the prices than India

3. Language

• English has attained the level of China's second language.
• Government has made the National English proficiency test mandatory for B.A and M.A.

4. Labialisation of laws and government policies

• Government has passed laws tat protect private ownership and intellectual property in country.
• It has also embraced public/private partnerships and domestic/foreign partnerships.

5. Existence of offshore manufacturing and physical proximity to major markets

• China is the manufacturing plant of the world providing sound base for outsourcing strengthened by risk mitigation and greater stability.
• Also, China sits next to Japan, world's second largest economy, and shares cultural and historical background with it. Therefore an increasing familiarity and economic integration is visible between the two countries.

Thus one can conclude the growing economic fabric of China will create a vibrant outsourcing environment making it your next IT source location.

The future shape of any business can be defined by its outsourcing. India leads the world in offshore outsourcing. This is because Indian Service Providers do not just offer cost effective solutions, but also value addition by improving productivity and quality.

One might reconsider his decision to outsource a business process when initial investment in infrastructure, training and other such preliminaries come into the account. But the actual cost advantage is realized over a period of time in an outsourcing venture which
involves a committed relationship and understanding between both the parties involved.

India is a talent rich country. Of the 23 software companies in the world that have achieved the prestigious SEI-CMM Level 5, 15 of them are Indian. The creativity combined with the experience helps Indian vendors deliver high quality work in wide range of services which includes e-commerce, business process re-engineering, system migration, etc.

About 82% North American companies prefer India most while outsourcing the business process. It is because of the exceptionally good schooling system, an example of which can be Indian Institute Of Technology, one of the best and the toughest engineering school in the world. Not only this, India also offers the largest pool of the technical skills in the world. The country's universities add 180,000 engineering graduates to its rank annually.

Apart from this, India has the largest network in Asia with 24.3 million telephone lines expanding at the rate of more than 20% a year. It has 123,000 route km of fiber optical cable network. Over 8000 VSAT'S are installed all over the country by various service providers, private users and government agencies.

The government even keeps the Information Technology in its top five priorities. This is evident from the fact that government has set up a separate ministry of Information Technology and has also approved the 108 point action plan to promote IT in country submitted by National IT Task Force.

The IT Act 2000, passed by Indian Parliament in May 2000, has brought e-commerce with in the decree of law, and accords severe punishment to cyber criminals, thus putting India among one 12 countries worldwide to have cyber laws.

Thus it can be said that India has emerged as a global brand in terms of superior quality.