More and more, organizations in the US and elsewhere are examining the option of using offshore capabilities (in India, China and other countries) to perform parts of their business operations, product development efforts or IT functions. In addition to the obvious cost savings, this option also improves the turn-around times (due to time-zone differences) and quality (due to easy availability of highly trained resources).

While many large organizations have taken this plunge and are reaping the benefits of offshore operations, there are still a number of organizations who have not started to integrate offshore options into their operations thus putting themselves at a disadvantage compared to their competitors who are aggressively pursuing these options. This condition is especially prevalent among small to medium organizations which do not have the expertise and resources needed to either set up their own offshore operations or to select the right offshore partners that can match their needs.

With its extensive onshore and offshore experience and resources, Acro is ideally suited to help such organizations explore the offshore options, devise the optimum and custom offshore scenarios and set up the necessary infrastructure, processes, coordination, resource recruitment and management.

For a start, all of the services and capabilities described in the previous pages are available to our customers at Onshore or Offshore locations. Acro can help customers with devising the right mix of Onsite, Nearshore and Offshore resources to execute their projects or business processes in a cost-effective manner while maintaining high quality and quick response/turn-around times. Acro has been operating its offshore facility in New Delhi, India for quite some time and also has its own recruiting and staffing operation in India which can provide the same quality of IT and Engineering Staffing services that our customers in US are used to getting.

More specifically Acro is able to provide the following Offshore services to its customers. Of course, we can also customize and extend these services to suit a customer's specific needs

Offshore Project Services

Acro provides professional engineering, IT and/or embedded systems skills to help customers develop, enhance, maintain and support their products. Depending on the requirements and customer's comfort level, we assign the right mix of onshore and offshore resources to meet the customer's cost, quality and milestone requirements. Based on customer preferences, we can either deliver the project on a fixed-price basis with Acro providing Project Management or provide resources (people, facilities, network bandwidth etc.) under a Time-and-Materials basis to work under the customer's Project Manager(s). If the latter option is selected, Acro will assign an onshore Project Coordinator to facilitate the communication and customer satisfaction.

Under this service, also called the Offshore Branch Service, Acro will set up captive offshore unit(s) dedicated to a specific customer. This includes the acquisition of offshore facilities, setting up the administrative, technical and network infrastructure, recruitment of offshore personnel meeting the customer requirements, appropriate training in customer's products, methodologies and tools, and placing into service the unit as a natural extension of the customer's development organization or business process. While this unit will operate under the direction of the customer manager(s), Acro will assign an onshore client manager to monitor and resolve issues related to communication, schedule and quality. These units will be initially set up under the legal ownership of Acro minimizing the risks for the customer. After the unit(s) is in satisfactory operation for some time, the customer may elect to absorb the unit(s) as a legal part of its organization.

Offshore Staff Augmentation

For customers who are setting up or operating their own offshore operations, Acro provides contract personnel of all disciplines on a temporary or indefinite basis to work under the customer's supervision. Typically, the work is performed at the customer's facility but Acro offers a value-added feature in which it can provide its own facilities to carry out the work.