Having a foot on each shore - Bridging global software development in the case of SMEs

In a globalised world economy, small and mediumsized companies (SMEs) are now entering the global software engineering (GSE) arena, but their involvement is more often opportunistic than carefully planned. Considered until a few years ago a major destination for outsourcing/offshoring, Ireland is now moving toward a dual role. Small Irish companies are becoming aware of the opportunities provided by offshoring their software development activities and are beginning to harvest the benefits. Two case studies were undertaken in two small Irish companies that have offshored their software development to subsidiaries in Romania and India respectively. Building on Lings'[1] reference model for distributed development, the current paper aims at illustrating particular ways of putting these strategies into practice in the case of small companies by relaying on people who can bridge the two cultures. Our paper demonstrates that, once particular strategies are implemented, small companies can also benefit from offshoring.