How does Offshore Outsourcing Model work for the software development?

Last week I have received this inquisitive question from one of my team members.  So I thought of sharing my personal experience as of now how our team works in Hi-Tech ITO.

• We have marketing team who gets prospect list, client meeting, web research etc.
• Pre-sale team works on chunk lists like from SEO, direct calling, existing client list which can be the prospects for the software development, IT trade fair like CeBIT, reference from the existing client, bidding portal, consultant companies and social media etc.
• This team gets the broad level requirement specification in form of email or document. 
• While this is in process, they provide information about Hi-Tech and the various services it currently offers and details about our development expertise etc. are shared with the prospect.
• Inquiry gets allocated to respective project manager or Business Analyst depending upon their availability for performing the impact analysis and finalizing effort estimates
• We sign strict NDA to give them assurance about the privacy of the project information
• Along with BA, senior technical team member get involved for preparing the document of understanding and work break down structure before finalizing the estimates.
• Then we submit the formal proposal to the client which can also include broad level milestone planning, team structure, time, cost, development stages, WBS etc.
• After getting approval on the proposal, we submit SLA (Service Level Agreement) which can include proposed start date, end date, payment milestone, terms and conditions.
• PM gets introduced to the client for planning the entire project execution. During this process PM work on the team procurement proactively to avoid project execution delay.
• Then we conduct the project kick-off meeting once we receive the agreed advance payment with the agenda of team introduction, project discussion and broad level next planning.
• One senior member gets introduced to the client as a POC (Point of contact) for the on-going project execution.  POC works very closely with PM on each aspect until project closure
• POC provides next deliverable planning to client and keeps them informed about the actual progress in the agreed frequency.
• Team is also equipped with QC and designer depending upon the need.
• Also as per the need we prepare the wireframe of the application before starting the coding
• Designers prepare the main page mock-up suiting the business vertical, choice of colour, industry trend etc. It gets fine-tune further with the client feedback.   Once mock-up is finalized they prepare the required HTML, CSS and light weight images and same is followed for the entire development.
• QC write the Storyboard (as prescribed in the Agile development model) to have one common document mentioning the behaviour of the proposed system.  This document also helps for freezing the requirement, planning and tracking.
• As and when we develop the modules are released to client for availing their immediate feedback so that it is been taken care with rest of the development proactively which also reduces rework.
• We make sure to perform QC before final releases
• Once we are thru with the UAT (User Acceptance Testing) performed on the environment created by Hi-Tech our most of the responsibility gets over
• Our technical writer prepare the project documentation which comprises of screen shots and description of the functionalists
• We do the one time live deployment and provide technical support to attend live issues.
• Generally clients come up with the CR (Change requests) and we smartly follow the spiral model by doing the impact analysis, construction, regression testing and deployment.

This is general broad level outline we follow for most of the assignments and customize it according to project / client need.  We gel with their practices, share them industry standard and follow it according to the project requirement.  Looking at the verity of the clients, our flexibility is a key point to our project execution success.  Our team members are adaptable to new technologies and have freedom for the knowledge update, R&D, promoting to open source etc.