For the past 10 years, DAI has specialized in developing and marketing a family of advanced information management software for the electronics manufacturing industry. DAI’s software solutions have enabled many leading Fortune 500 companies to address their shop floor automated data collection and execution needs while providing the information needed for decision support within the production process and across the manufacturing supply chain. However, as the need for enterprise–wide solutions have increased, so too as the need for leading-edge software that is capable of addressing today’s Internet-centric business needs.

“As early as 1998, it became apparent to DAI that we did not have the internal expertise to leverage the latest and greatest software technology on the market, nor could we compete for the best software developers within the USA job market,” said Errol Lafayette, Chief Executive of DAI. “In order to compete with the leading software companies in our market space we needed a new approach to building an organization that would provide access to some highly talented development resources and deliver leading-edge software solutions in a professional and timely manner,” Lafayette continued.

After carefully weighing up its options, DAI decided to take the bold decision to outsource parts of its software development activities and in November of 1998 Bitsoft Systems a software development service company based in Banglore, India was engaged. The initial project involved porting a legacy HP-UX application to Microsoft Windows/NT. Bitsoft was given the freedom to evaluate a variety of options before selecting the optimum solution, which was based on Sun Microsystems’ Java technology. The solution was well received by DAI’s clients and resulted in the consummation of a solid business and working relationship between DAI and Bitsoft.

“The initial project was somewhat of an “acid test”, as the application in question was over ten years old and Bitsoft’s domain experience of our industry was limited, so success in this project was going to require a strong development team and teamwork from both sides. We also made the decision at the outset to work with a company that had a similar core ideology and work ethic to DAI and make them a seamless part of our ‘virtual’ organization. In fact, we refer to Bitsoft internally as ‘DAI India’,” said Lafayette. “The results from this initial project was impressive, as Bitsoft quickly demonstrated that not only did they have excellent software development and project management skills (a testament to India’s software industry), but that they also were able to quickly come up to speed on our domain. Bitsoft’s overall responsiveness and “24x7” work ethic are key factors to the high levels of information interchange and collaboration we achieve between our organizations,” Lafayette continued.

Since the initial success of the first project DAI has transferred all major software development projects to Bitsoft, including work on critical future products. Over the past two and half years, there have been significant interactions between Bitsoft and DAI, and DAI’s key customers to develop new products. As the business relationship has grown, Bitsoft has been engaged earlier in the product cycle, to the point where direct collaboration between Bitsoft and DAI’s customers is a foreseeable reality.

“The decision to outsource software development was initially difficult, as it was uncharted territory for DAI. However, we found in Bitsoft a company with excellent skills and a solid work ethic, which made this outsourcing endeavor a success. Not only have we significantly improved our ability to launch new products and technology, but we have also dramatically reduced our software development costs,” said Lafayette.