Interpretation of Japanese software outsourcing

Sender: wll (diet starts again...), email area: jkstu
Title: "Japanese learning" weekend special series (4) -- Interpreting Japanese software outsourcing
Mail station: Peony garden station, Jilin University (Sun Oct 21 10:18:00 2007)

Among many Japanese enterprises, software companies account for a considerable proportion, and most of them focus on Japanese outsourcing. Research
How is the process and technical characteristics of outsourcing to Japan, and how is the level of Japanese? I will repost an article today, hoping to give it to you,
Especially those in computer science.

This is an article I wrote some time ago to e fulcrum, an internal journal of the Software Institute of the Chinese Emy of sciences.

Interpretation of Japanese software outsourcing

I. Preface
Outsourcing, software outsourcing, and Japanese software outsourcing. What are these? Do you know about them? Are you considering
Working in an outsourcing company? If you do not know much about outsourcing and software outsourcing, you can refer to relevant articles first.
Read. I am currently working in a one-day software outsourcing company, so I have some experience in Japanese software outsourcing.
Share with you. This article focuses on the characteristics of Japanese software outsourcing, so that you can understand Japanese software outsourcing
. This article does not cover any details, but is an overview of the characteristics of Japanese software outsourcing.

Ii. Feature 1: Japanese
Similar to other foreign companies or foreign companies, Japanese software outsourcing companies also need foreign languages, that is, Japanese talents.
The level of your Japanese language, your technical level is not high, even you do not understand software, it does not matter, as long as you have a good Japanese
The company will also hire you. If you can communicate with the Japanese, you will be the company's key protection targets. Why
? Because the company has to communicate with Japan when doing business with Japan, and there is a problem with communication, don't talk about anything else. Many
Chinese and Japanese are quite similar, so China has a language advantage in Japanese outsourcing, and I don't think it is all.
All right. First, there are too few Chinese people who can learn Japanese, and many people are reluctant to learn Japanese due to historical reasons. Although in recent years
The number of Chinese people taking the Japanese language proficiency test has soared, but it is not the same as that of English learners.
The talent gap in Japanese companies is even worse. Besides, many of them are just half-way out of their homes, but Japanese is not their
The level of the first foreign language is also uneven. From the overall region of China, as Japan is close to the northeast of China
Throughout history, the Northeast region has more exchanges with Japan and North Korea. There are more people who can speak Japanese and Korean than other regions.
There are only a handful of Japanese talents in the south and west of China. Therefore, outsourcing companies to Japan are mostly concentrated in Northeast China and North China.
Area, such as Dalian and Beijing, which has recently become increasingly active in Japanese outsourcing.
So I don't know Japanese at all, or I don't want to work for a Japanese company if I am not good at Japanese? No, absolutely not
Yes. It doesn't matter if Japanese companies are purely technical at the very beginning, because you don't have to work with Japanese companies.
For direct communication, although documents are in Japanese, they are all modeled and indeed similar to Chinese, probably
You can guess the meaning, but no one else can help explain it. Generally, Japanese employees are not good at Japanese companies.
They will start various types of Japanese classes to help them learn Japanese.
Professor or self-taught. At least my company looks like this. I have learned from other Japanese companies, but it is almost the same.
Yes. However, after a period of study in Japanese, if your Japanese language level is not yet advanced or you do not study it at all, the problem will be strict.
Heavy. There is a shortage of Japanese talents. Therefore, Japanese companies cannot recruit people with poor Japanese skills.
. Employees are in contact with Japanese in the company. If they do not understand it at all, a long time will inevitably affect work efficiency. No.
If you are willing to learn Japanese, there is no future for Japanese companies. Japanese in our company is not good
Even better, you will not be able to raise your salary or raise your salary within the scope of your consideration.
A high-level Japanese proficiency test has a bright future.
Object.
Here, I suggest you have friends who want to work with Japanese companies. If you no longer want to learn Japanese, you can
If you do not want to learn at all, I suggest you make another plan. Otherwise, you will be very eager
Sorry, you are neither technically or in other ways, nor Japanese. Then, your performance will not go up, and you will not go down.
Is more efficient than the company.

Iii. Feature 2: Working hours
Why is working time a characteristic of outsourcing to Japan? In fact, it is not only outsourced to Japan, but all offshore (foreign,
Overseas) outsourcing has this feature, that is, foreign and domestic because of time difference and holidays or other differences will lead to us
The working hours are inconsistent. Here I am only talking about Japan.
First, there is indeed an hour difference between the Japanese and China, but one hour is not a problem. The problem is Japan.
Work habits and spirit. Generally, Japanese do not get off work. I think the degree of hard work
I don't need to talk about it any more. There are a lot of people who are overworked and suddenly die. After work, most Japanese
I feel that I will stay in the company and continue to work for a while, especially in the software industry. This is a tradition, because Japan is now in China.
The industry is under a lot of pressure and will soon be eliminated if you don't sell your life, so most people work very hard. For
Japanese software outsourcing companies and personnel come to the fore, they don't get off work, they are working, then we need people and daily
Party A (respond to anything sent by the Japanese side at any time and give an answer immediately if necessary ).
I want to work and keep in touch with Japan in real time, especially at night. Especially Japanese people usually sort out some items during the day.
Problems and high efficiency can be solved in real time. If the problem is slow, it must be sent before the end of work.
In some extreme cases, we will wait for the Japanese side during the day,
And then work at night. The closer the product delivery period (project delivery period) is, the closer it is.
Tianji is always on duty 24 hours a day. However, this demonstrates that the quality requirements of the Japanese are very strict and do everything necessary.
The product quality is guaranteed at the cost. Once problems are detected, they are immediately matched. So like other IT companies, they often work overtime for Japanese companies. Of course, this is only one of the reasons for overtime. There are many famous festivals in Japan.
There are many holidays, so sometimes they will be very busy and sometimes there will be no response for several days.
Then there is the Chinese who have passed the spring festival, but the Japanese do not. Therefore, if an outsourcing company to Japan has projects that span the Spring Festival or even during the Spring Festival
I'm sorry for receiving the goods in the day or the next few days. In this case, the project members will have a tight Spring Festival. Large
You can usually go home on the evening of the 30th, but after the festival, it is very likely that you will go back to the company to work overtime a few days in advance.

Iv. Feature 3: mature technology
If you are a. Net programmer. It is difficult for you to find a job as a Japanese software outsourcing company. If you are a Java high
Congratulations, you are the most favored candidate for Japanese companies. What tools are used to develop outsourcing projects to Japan?
Specified by Japan. Most Japanese users choose development tools or other peripheral tools such as Java.
These tools have been used by many people and projects for many years and are very mature and complete, basically without any technical skills.
Technical difficulties, and the available peripheral resources are also very adequate. It is easy to find a solution for any problems,
In addition, Java is free. Of course, the most important thing is the first point.
Highly sophisticated tools bring low risks, which mean high quality and low cost. On the contrary, new tools must be used.
High risk. The Japanese sometimes use some very old tools, some are even unknown. Why?
Because some systems are extended and developed on the original system, the original system may have been developed many years ago.
However, the original system has been operating stably for many years, which indicates that the technology used by the original system is reliable.
The original technology was used to maintain system stability. The Japanese have never been a pioneer in software technology.
With proven tools and methods and frameworks, once they find one or more practical tools that suit them
Development methods, they will stick to the use and constantly improve until these things are too old to fit
New but mature things come in. Quality and stability are the top priority.

5. Feature 4: extremely rigorous documentation
The importance of documents in software projects has been well known. The Japanese software industry attaches great importance to documents and usage documents.
Every detail should be recorded in the form of a document, even the content in an email should be extracted to the document
The Indian software and documentation are very similar to those in Japan, and the Indian software documentation is also quite complete.
A special feature of Japanese writing documents is that they prefer excel. More than 90% of their documents are written in Excel,
As for why they prefer excel, I think the most important reason is that excel can be divided into many
Pages to facilitate management, and other texts such as word do not have this advantage. The Japanese made Excel superb,
Use a variety of macros, a variety of drawing, a variety of complex computing, as long as they want them to do in Excel
.
Although the Japanese software project documents are detailed, they are not very uniform. They are not or are only those listed in textbooks.
Each company has its own characteristics, but the difference is not very big in general. Next, let me talk about the two differences.
Point of the document, these documents may also be available in other types of software companies, here only to mention what I have seen in the company. One type
The ticket is to be questioned and sent by the contractor (Outsourcing Contractor) to the contractor (outsourcing provider or issuer. The questioning ticket is an official account
When the content in the sample book (Design book) is vague or hard to understand, or the requirements of the Japanese side are unclear
If you want to use it, write your question points in the question ticket and send them to the Japanese side. Then the Japanese side will give you an answer.
Have a detailed explanation of your questions. This is a special document in the offshore outsourcing project, because
The distance is too long to communicate with each other at any time. Therefore, although the efficiency is not high, the cost is relatively low,
And can leave written evidence. The other method is to pick it up. It is sent by the sender to pick up the room. Like other software companies,
The Japanese refer to the obvious problems in the program as bugs, while some ambiguous or understandable problems refer
Abstract, not counted as a bug. The document that records bugs is called a bug ticket. It's because of communication.
The problem is that the Japanese side cannot determine whether the problem is a bug or is not a bug. They will send it to us for correction.
Check or discuss. The existence of the directive has a great impact on the quality of software products. If a project has many bugs, of course, the quality is poor. However, with the guidance, many problems do not need to be classified as bugs.
There are two aspects to measure the quality of software products: Bug and correction. In this way, it is more fair, but if it is true
If there are a lot of things, it also means that the software quality is not high. If a finger is finally identified as a bug, it will be
It is classified as a bug. Of course, the role of the directive is not limited to this. It also has many other functions, so I will not elaborate on them.
The above are just two examples. There are many unique documents for Japanese outsourcing projects. If you are interested
I wrote a special article to introduce it.

Vi. Feature 5: Low outsourcing level
Most people now use the traditional waterfall model life cycle, and the Conservative Japanese software industry is no exception. The Waterfall Model
It can be divided into requirements, analysis, summary design, detailed design, coding, testing, and maintenance. Most
Package projects are outsourced from the coding stage, and demand analysis and design are rarely outsourced. It can be said that outsourcing companies to Japan
It is a code factory, and most employees are code workers. Therefore, China is now the back-end code of the Japanese software industry.
This means that China's software outsourcing is still in a very initial stage.
Content of simple work. There are many reasons for this. The demand for Japanese software outsourcing projects is generally from Japan.
It is difficult and difficult for us to have access to the demand analysis stage (Of course, this also involves business
Confidential, security, etc.), the summary design should be carried out according to the results of the requirement analysis, the detailed design is the most available for the Contractor
However, the industry quality in China's software industry is not very high, and it cannot meet the requirements of the Japanese side.
So the detailed design is generally not outsourced to the contractor.
Even so, we should not be too pessimistic. Now China's software industry is moving forward, and we are undertaking
In addition to outsourcing projects, we have also learned the advanced knowledge and experience of the software industry in developed countries. There are already many posts in China
Soon after the Japanese outsourcing enterprises were recognized by the Japanese side, some outsourcing projects to Japan have recently been designed in detail.
. I think the rapid development of China's economy will drive the rapid development of China's software industry and the Future of Chinese Software
The outsourcing industry will surely rise from the shadows of Japan or the world's code factory to the overall outsourcing of business processes.
The upper layer of the package. From business to R & D, from design to development, we gradually gain the trust and product of the employer.
Establish the credibility and brand of the contractor. As a result, our role not only stays at the contractor, but also has advanced
In the future, we can also become a contractor and outsource our software projects to other countries.
Of course, we still need to make a lot of effort to achieve the above ambitious goals. We need to step by step.
Go on, strive for a higher level of outsourcing projects, learn the strengths of others for my use, develop them, and take their essence
It makes it a suitable knowledge for us.

VII. feature 6: Demand Deformation
In the above features, we mentioned that software outsourcing to Japan is usually not outsourced in the demand, analysis and design stages.
The differences in understanding requirements, analysis and design between the contractor and the sending Party lead to constant changes in design or coding.
.
Instability in demand and design is a common problem in the software industry and the biggest headache in the software industry. Someone said there was a software engineer.
Domain requirements are very stable and can no longer change after the design is completed. This is the offshore software outsourcing, especially
I think this is a big mistake. Although the requirements and design documents of the Japanese software industry are quite standardized
It does not mean they will not change. In most cases, if a Japanese company wants to make a software, it will outsource it to a day.
The software company, while the Japanese software company, in order to save costs, sometimes part of the module in this project or a project stage
It is then transferred to China's Japanese software outsourcing company, while China's Japanese software outsourcing company's headquarters are generally in Japan, total
The company is responsible for receiving the package, and then the company will send the project to China for final manufacturing. We can imagine a total
How many times have you done so? Sometimes, the projects that a Japanese outsourcing company has already had are three-pack, four-pack projects. Small Project
Fortunately, if it is a large project, the sender must communicate frequently with the receiver, and a large amount of information is sent through
It is hard to say that the transmission of nodes will not be deformed.
The larger the project, the more unstable the demand, the more we all know. It is difficult for the contractor to understand all the requirements at once.
Not to mention a few more attempts, and the mistakes or statements in the example books are ambiguous (which we often encounter ).
The contractor's project staff are not good at Japanese. I think the final coding staff's understanding of the project and the original contractor's understanding will not be completely
. So it came to the middle and late stages of the project, and some molding modules have been made.
Communication with the contractor and the contractor will become more and more frequent. You can ask me a question, I ask you a question, and everyone is trying to figure out something.
What is it for? Is it what the user wants? Then the Shi sample book is repaired and supplemented, and the program is changed and changed,
Finally, a large number of testers are invested to carry out large-scale tests to ensure the quality of the project. So after the Japanese project arrives
Project staff often work overtime after the period, which is another reason for working overtime at the Japanese company.
In fact, I think it is not easy to implement outsourcing projects to Japan.
The company has done a good job and has formed a mature outsourcing strategy. One project can be implemented without delay
Or a short delay is already quite successful. Although there is a project demand deformation, the Japanese do things well.
Habits are worth learning. For example, most of their documents are implemented using textures, graphics, and tables.
All documents must be well documented. This ensures that, although the project is always changing, it will not be in disorder and will not be unreasonable.
Clear your mind. Everything is going on in an orderly manner, but work overtime is often the only thing to do.

8. features 7: no products, no sales
Generally, software companies do two things: one is a project and the other is a product. Project is never done, only once
Software. After the product is finished, it must be sold to the market and maintained and updated. For specific differences between projects and products, see
I will not go into detail here for other materials.
Outsourcing companies generally receive projects and seldom outsource products. Therefore, there is no product to talk about sales,
There are no functions and operations for the sales department, sales personnel, marketing, channel market, and goods distribution. If you are a sales
Or marketing personnel, you should not consider the Japanese software company, if you are a programmer, engineer or Project Ideal
We recommend that you do not consider Japanese software companies. Of course, if a company produces Japanese goods
Product, and you want to make sales in Japanese and good, then undoubtedly this company is your ideal choice.

9. Feature 8: Assignment System
If you belong to Company A, and company A has nothing to do now, can you be idle? Of course not. You will be
Send a ticket to Company B who needs someone to support the project there. Of course, Company A does not have to be idle. If Company B needs
If a person finds Company A, Company A will also find ways to allocate manpower to Company B. This is an exclusive feature of Japanese outsourcing companies.
Assignment system.
In Chinese companies, especially state-owned enterprises, you have never seen any company send its employees to other companies to work in China.
This may not be easy to understand. And this is already a thing between Japanese companies.
This is an assignment. If someone is hired, they will be dispatched. Is it because Japanese companies like to help each other? Of course, I will never deny the event.
This factor exists, but ultimately the fundamental benefits play an important role in it. Let me explain the following:
The ins and outs of the assignment. If Company A sends a person to Company B to work, it is not free of charge. Company B pays for it every month.
The money paid to Company A is negotiated by Company A and Company B based on factors such as the company, project, personnel quality and time.
If the two companies are often dispatched to each other, they will naturally form an agreed stable price. Company A dispatched to Company B
In addition to the fact that the company's salary is not paid by Company B, the company's salary is the same as that of Company B. Of course, there are still many details to ask.
The question varies with the company. Company A needs to sign an assignment contract with Company B to specify the Assignment time,
Expatriate fees and various details. After the assignment personnel finish the required work within the time specified by Company B, the handover is completed.
Then you can return to Company.
This is the general process of sending an assignment to a Japanese company. Whether you like this company or not, it is now stored
It has been a long time and has been recognized by many Japanese companies. Who is the first company to implement this system?
It is hard to prove, but such a system can appear and survive, it must have its advantages. First, it is clear that company B
Company A borrowed a person to work and only paid a certain amount of money to Company A every month.
The monthly salary of employees is much higher, but the insurance, welfare, personnel relations, and other B Companies of expatriates do not need to worry about it.
In fact, Company A lent people to Company B for further use. In essence, the assignment is outsourcing, that is, Company B.
Some work is outsourced to Company A, and company A is dedicated to doing the work, but these people of Company A will go to Company B and work with Company B.
Employees of the company collaborate to complete the work.
As mentioned above, what a good operation mode does Company B need to pay for any additional long-term expenses for expatriates?
And saves Company B's cost. Company A also makes full use of manpower, so that human resources can be rationally configured and obtained
Artificial excess profits. Is the assignment system flawless? Of course not. The assignment system is a double-edged sword.
It also has fatal defects. Some short-term expatriates are sent to a company mainly responsible for coding.
Expatriates no longer follow up on the work after the encoding phase. This poses a risk. Imagine the compilation of a project of Company B.
The Code work is completed by the expatriates of Company A. The coding stage is over and the expatriates are gone.
Company B's staff are required to test and maintain the code, and Company B is short of staff, so Company B must be responsible for each person.
A lot of code, which was not originally compiled by them. Now they need to understand the code and find out the problems.
And modify the code. Think about how terrible this is. Who can make sure that the code written by others is fully understood,
Who can ensure there is no problem after the code is changed? The consequences can be imagined. In fact, it is not only code, as long as the expatriates do not follow up
This type of problem exists in a project process. I will not talk about it much more. So now enterprises want expatriates to follow up on the whole
Project process, but the longer the time, the higher the cost of expatriates. Many Japanese companies have been thinking about how to improve the effectiveness of assignments.
Rate, I believe that the expatriate system will become more and more perfect in the future, domestic companies may also use this model to save costs.

10. Summary
These are some of the characteristics of Japanese software outsourcing I personally summarize. Although they are not unique to Japanese software outsourcing
They are indeed inherent in Japanese software outsourcing. Understanding these features helps us gain an in-depth understanding of Japanese software
Outsourcing Software to Japan, and urge us to think about how to improve and develop the software industry in China.
China's software outsourcing to Japan is in a rapid development stage, with broad prospects and many opportunities. We learned from the Japanese software industry
I learned a lot from the Japanese about their attitude towards doing things. Outsourcing to Japan expands China's software market,
Improve the level of China's software manufacturing industry. But we need to know why the Japanese outsource software to China because
It is cheap for Chinese human resources. In Japan, an ordinary employee can hire a team of four or five people in China.
We made money, but of course we made a small profit. The Japanese took a big profit. This shows the software level in our country
We started with Japan after World War II. Why Can Japan become a world power? Japanese software industry
It's not earlier than we started. Why are their software standards so high that their neighbors
It is worth thinking about. We cannot always be satisfied with software manufacturers
At the factory level, we must learn other people's good things for our use. From software manufacturing plants to the world
R & D base, from simple software outsourcing to overall outsourcing of business processes, from contractors to contractors. Each
One step is inseparable from the efforts of every software engineer.
If you are a software engineer and want this article to be useful to you, you can learn about outsourcing software and outsourcing industry to Japan.
So that you can provide some reference for choosing a career.

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※Source:. bbs.jlu.edu.cn, peony garden station, Jilin University [from: 219.217.63. *]

※Modification:. wll modified this article at Oct 21 10:20:17 2007. [from: 219.217.63. *]