Cultural barriers can hinder outsourcing

One of the major issues in international outsourcing is theexistence of cultural barriers says Ultizen's US business VP MichaelDevine.
"The gaming world has become a worldwide stage, but there is definitely significant regional flavour and differences," he told GamesIndustry.biz
"Thereis a lot of training time involved and ramping time involved - whetherits Eastern European or Indian or Chinese teams - to get the rightlook, get the right feel. To learn how, operationally, North Americanteams work. To be able to be integrated. To be seamless. There aresignificant issues."

Devine says that in most of thesesituations companies need key members of the teams to have superiorlanguage skills, and they need to make sure that both sides aremanaging the process so that everybody is clear on the communication.
"Itis really not, in most instances, as simple as getting parameters forthe assets and going ahead and creating them. It is a lot more detailedthan that."
Whether or not an outsourcing project is ultimatelyconsidered successful depends on how well those communication issuesare managed.
"The companies that don't pay attention to thatmanagement structure and don't work hard on both ends - the domesticteam and the international team...If they're not working hard on thatcommunication, there absolutely can be issues," Devine said.
Thedomestic partner needs to make its expectations clear and must bewilling to organise and work at the communication. At the same time,the international team must be structured to work with thatcommunication and needs to let the domestic team know what theyunderstand and what they need to be clarified.
"Style-wise, eachregion definitely has nuances. But, typically, if you have a good andbroad art team - if they communicate well and understand direction well- its very achievable for them to obtain any look that is necessary.
"Same thing for a domestic art team. It's really about understanding what the task is."