18 million kroner from the Danish Council for Strategic Research

Danish competitiveness within global software development is improvable

Danish companies' competitiveness within software development is still more dependent on a well-functioning global cooperation, as they become more and more important on the world market.

Today, software development is highly based on outsourcing, but the companies have a stated need to establish a closer global collaboration between development teams across time zones, places and cultures.

Move focus from outsourcing to global collaboration

A new research project will develop technologies, which efficiently bridge the gaps between geographic, time-wise and cultural differences, thereby giving the companies an opportunity to improve their competitiveness on the global market within software development.

The focus must be moved from outsourcing to collaboration. Cultural diversity is a cornerstone for innovation if you manage to take advantage of and appreciate the difference as a resource in the technology development collaboration.

Respect for cultural differences promotes the virtual communication

Professor Anne-Marie Søderberg from the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management is head of this project's ethnographic studies of communication, culture and collaboration in the global software development teams.

She says that the companies not only need to develop new tools and processes, but also a cultural understanding and an ability to communicate across boundaries.

One of the participating companies is Danish NNIT, who has development centres in China, the Philippines and the Czech Republic.

- The future for a company like NNIT, who works with global software development, is the new market within offshoring of software development to countries like China and the Philippines. Some of the most essential and general competences, which are subject to constant development, is the awareness of the cultural diversity and the challenges posed by communication and decision-making in a globalised organisation, says E.K. Østergaard, Solution Architect, NNIT A/S.

Who is part of the team?

The five-year project 'Next Generation Technology for Global Software Development. Understanding and Improving Global Software Development Practices and Tools’ will take place in a close collaboration between humanists, sociologists and technology researchers from CBS, the IT University of Copenhagen and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

The Danish company NNIT with its development centres in China, the Philippines and the Czech Republic also participates, as does the Indian company TATA Consulting Services, a large global player with 550 ICT consultants in Denmark, and a small Danish IT company, TEO, a so-called 'born global'-company with development centres in Pakistan and Malaysia.