Intrinsix Design Outsourcing

Why Technology Companies Are Embracing Design Outsourcing Partners
 

In the past, companies viewed outsourcing as a way to handle overflow engineering opportunities or to supplement engineering staff due to resource hiring limitations or temporary skill set mismatches. Typically, there was no loyalty to one another beyond the current engagement. Today, technology companies are embracing Design Outsourcing partners and building strategic long-term relationships.

Rapidly growing companies are quickly realizing that their growth does not need to be limited by their ability to attract, hire and retain top-level engineering talent. Outsourcing relationships allow progressive companies to implement a rapid product design cycle business methodology where products can be designed to meet market windows without having to first ramp up staffing to address, and possibly miss, the market opportunity. Few companies can afford to miss market windows. In the consumer electronic market alone, missing the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) can mean missing an entire year's worth of product sales opportunity.

Design Outsourcing providers are entering into partnerships with major electronic product design companies and establishing long-term mutual commitments toward one another. In doing so, companies can be assured of having an available electronic design team when needed to help them grow to meet the market demand. By establishing partnerships, the outsourcing relationship extends over many individual design engagements and allows the company to leverage its investment in the relationship in contrast to one-off type of contract house projects which they may be accustomed in the past.

Designing for Reuse/Maximum Return on Investment

A design reuse partnership with a Design Outsourcing partner provides maximum return on investment of the engineering work-product resulting from each design engagement. Reusable design elements include:

• Component Intellectual Property

• Verification Intellectual Property

• Design and Verification Process Flow Methodology

• Design Collaboration Environments

• Access to IP Repositories and source code control systems

• Rapid prototyping of new versions or new designs

Selecting the Right Partner

Choosing the right partner is critical to the success of any relationship. Trust, mutual commitment, and establishing an opportunity where both partners can share in the success of the relationship, rewarded by market forces are key aspects of a successful relationship.

A successful partnership is one in which risks as well as rewards are shared in proportion to the risk-reward ratio.