CIO Magazine has a profile of Sandra Hoffman, CIO at MAPICS, who also carries the title of Chief People Officer. The article gives an interesting perspective to the changes that vendors needed to make to survive the downturn in technology spending that began in 2000. In the case of MAPICS, the changes included consolidating functions previously built around separate product lines, moving most employees to home offices, and offshoring large parts of the development function. Concerning outsourcing, MAPICS now outsources all development and maintenance activities to the Indian firm, HCL Technologies. System architecture, design, training, information development, and quality assurance work remain in the US, however. Hoffman estimates that the outsourcing strategy cuts software development costs in half. The changes seem to be working. MAPICS returned to profitability in 2002 with earnings of $14 million on revenue of $128 million.
MAPICS is not unique in moving software development offshore. Oracle is known to have large parts of its development organization offshore and a number of other vendors, such as IFS, have similar arrangements.
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