Leigh Miller for GlobalAtlanta
Atlanta-based software development firm Xpanxion LLC has a global outsourcing business model that involves India and Nebraska but could work for rural Georgia, the company’s CEO, Paul Eurek, told GlobalAtlanta.
Xpanxion has announced plans to relocate part of its software testing operation and quality assurance program from Pune, India, to Kearney, Neb., because it determined that quality assurance for its software could be better tested by American workers, Mr. Eurek said.
“Software development is literally a global model. It doesn’t matter where you are physically sitting, as long as you have an Internet connection. So it opens doors to other countries and rural areas,” including rural Georgia, he said.
“There’s a real business case behind the move. We’ve been doing the offshore model for the last eight or nine years, so we know there are parts that don’t work properly in sending development offshore,” he added.
He cited the time difference between the United States and India as a difficulty in terms of providing users of Xpanxion’s products with real-time customer service. Indian employees’ different cultural understanding of how Xpanxion’s applications are to be used posed a challenge as well, he said. The company also wanted U.S. endusers to do the final testing of its products so those users could become client advocates, he added.
The new Xpanxion plant, scheduled to open in Nebraska in August, aims to alleviate these challenges, Mr. Eurek said. He calls the process of doing quality assurance testing in the U.S. and the rest of the software development in India “cross-sourcing.”
Mr. Eurek expects a within-20 percent difference between Nebraska and India in operating costs for the business unit. But he added that the cost difference is worth it if it improves quality and prevents the company from losing a customer.
“We are about customer satisfaction. We let our customers know that regardless of where in the world we conduct our business, our quality is going to match the quality of U.S. products,” Mr. Eurek said.
Nebraska offers competitive labor costs and a high work ethic, Mr. Eurek said. While his operation in India has a 40 percent attrition rate, he does not anticipate such problems in Nebraska, where he has received resumes from potential employees who have worked for the same company for 10-15 years.
Mr. Eurek said Xpanxion considered rural Georgia for its new facility, but Nebraska is his home state, so he would like to see new jobs created there, as well as move back there himself, he said.
Yet the Nebraska facility is one that could be modeled in rural Georgia, Mr. Eurek said. Rural software testing centers allow communities to retain their technical workforce that might otherwise migrate to larger cities or out of state to find high-tech jobs, he said.
“There is a great quality of life in rural Georgia. They shouldn’t have to pick up and move to the city for good jobs,” he added.
Founded in 1997, Xpanxion is a U.S. company that operates an Indian corporation, Xpanxion Ltd. The firm initially brought in software development teams from China, Eastern Europe, India and the Middle East for a six-month evaluation. Mr. Eurek said the company selected India for its offshore software development because English is the primary language, the employees’ technical skills were appropriate and they had a good work ethic.
Mr. Eurek had previous offshore experience in India with a software development company that he sold to NCR Corp. He started Xpanxion because he “saw the need to leverage global resources for software development.”
Contact Mr. Eurek at peureck@xpanxion.com or info@xpanxion for more information.