EMC wanted to see what effect near-shore contractors would have on an internal project to deploy Automatic Data Processing's general ledger applications at the company's offices in Brazil. EMC tracked project spending, timing, and software defects. The quantitative metrics all turned out positive, says Ken LeBlanc, EMC's senior director of business operations and portfolio management. Nevertheless, EMC discovered it had to make a few adjustments--managing contracted workers required better documentation and more timely communications. "The knowledge of local needs, challenges, obstacles are key to the overall success of territory-specific projects," he says.

The lessons learned there are helping determine the mix of in-house and outsourced staffers for other IT initiatives. A recent project in support of EMC's sales and services involved 200 software developers and other staffers. Of those, 40% were contractors based in India and 60% were EMC people in the United States.