Offshoring Information Technology is an appealing book. Appealing not only because it deals with a topic of growing contemporary significance but also because it does so with lucidity, comprehensiveness, thoughtfulness and insightfulness. Over the last decade, offshoring of IT has become a mainstream business phenomenon and, as a result, managing offshoring has emerged as a critical business competence for firms. Erran Carmel and Paul Tjia in this book present a comprehensive treatment of IT offshoring and discuss the competencies required to successfully manage it. Dexterously guiding the readers through the offshore IT landscape and navigating through a range of pertinent topics, this book presents a well-crafted body of knowledge and guidelines to succeed with offshoring of IT. Recounting my experiences over the last 9 years or so, my immediate reaction to this book was: “Why the hell was this book not available a few years ago?” Had it been available, I thought, it would have positively influenced productivity and performance in offshore IT work – and saved sleepless nights for many people!

Circa 1995: The phenomenon of offshoring was starting to gain prominence. Attracted by its low cost structure and the ability to access a global resource pool, many multinational companies had begun leveraging the benefits of offshore IT either through their own subsidiaries or from third-party suppliers. Lured by its promise, I made the transition into the growing IT industry in 1996 to join a subsidiary of Siemens in Bangalore, engaged in communications software development.