Having a Foot on Each Shore – Bridging Global Software Development in the Case of SMEs Ita Richardson Gabriela Avram Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland ita.richardson@ul.ie gabriela.avram@ul.ie Sadhana Deshpande Valentine Casey Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland sadhana.deshpande@ul.ie val.casey@ul.ie Abstract In a globalised world economy, small and medium- sized 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.. 1. The Irish Bridge Considered until a few years ago as a major destination for outsourcing/offshoring - together with India and Israel [2]- Ireland is now moving towards a different role in the globalised world economy. [3] No longer a low-cost destination [4], Ireland is becoming a strategic one for reasons of its accumulated expertise, geographical position and low company tax level. It also continues to benefit from its ‘near shore’ status, ascribed to its linguistic and cultural similarities to the U.S. [3] [6]. In this context, a number of studies have focused on the ability of Irish subsidiaries of multinational companies to intermediate (bridge) the collaboration between other subsidiaries around the world. Irish subsidiaries of multinational companies for many years were at the receiving end of offshoring. They are now leveraging the accumulated expertise in managing work they send offshore [7]. Millewski et al. [8] study the case of a team in an Irish subsidiary that gradually takes up an “information bridging” role between members of the team in the US and others in an Indian subsidiary. Both these studies focus on multinational companies. While there has been a major experience gain from receiving in offshoring/outsourcing relationships, this gain is not confined to big companies. We can see that it has also proliferated in the Irish business environment. As this paper shows, small Irish companies are beginning to harvest the benefits of the opportunities provided by offshoring their software development activities. 2. The Importance of SMEs for the Irish Economy In Ireland, almost 99% of companies are small firms that employ less than 50 people, which account for over 68% of private sector employment. While these statistics reflect overall small firm growth in Ireland, the development agency, Forfás, indicated that certain sectors are critical to the continued success of the Irish economy [9]. One such sector is the Information and Communications Technology sector. This sector employs an estimated 92,000 people within 1,300 companies, with a combined estimated turnover of €52 billion for the year 2003 [10]. However a further requirement for small firms is that they have growth potential, and [11] indicate that the employment contribution of Irish small firms is only 11% compared with an EU average of 15%. Other government initiatives are focusing on the further establishment and increased growth of indigenous