Japanese businesses considering offshore development in Vietnam often start with the quotation and the team’s capabilities. Project owners also need to know how much internal time to reserve for preparing inputs, explaining business processes and confirming results.
A clearly scoped pilot offers a chance to observe this work. The aim is to find a collaboration model that fits available resources and identify activities that could be organized more effectively.
1. Decide which activities to record
Select a representative set of tasks with agreed deliverables and completion criteria. Before starting, list the client’s activities: preparing documents, answering questions, reviewing designs, checking results and coordinating with stakeholders.
Record actual working time by activity and role. Separate effort from elapsed waiting time: waiting two days for a response does not mean spending two person-days. For meetings, account for participants’ time rather than the meeting duration alone.
2. Separate onboarding effort from recurring work
Introducing the system, explaining procedures and establishing communication practices are initial activities. Reviewing outputs and deciding priorities may continue throughout the project.
Do not simply extrapolate all first-week effort across several months. Equally, do not assume every question will disappear once the team becomes familiar with the work. Mark one-time onboarding activities, recurring activities and those for which there is not enough evidence yet.
3. Distinguish necessary decisions from repeated work
The time a client spends confirming business rules is a necessary part of the project. Searching again for documents, answering the same question or reviewing the wrong version points to opportunities to improve coordination.
For repeated work, record the observed cause and an improvement to try. Avoid assigning all additional effort to one party’s mistakes without checking the context.
4. Hypothetical example: reducing repeated preparation
An SIer asks an offshore team to develop an order management report. The Japanese project contact assembles separate sample data for each question and explains the same background in several meetings.
After reviewing the activity log, both teams agree to use a shared sample dataset, record answers in one tracking location and circulate decisions needed before meetings. They continue recording effort on the next work item to assess whether the new approach fits. They do not assume a saving percentage in advance.
5. Read costs alongside deliverable quality
When evaluating the model, consider the partner’s fees, internal effort and other direct costs not already included in the quotation. If converting time into money, use a consistent internal calculation basis and avoid adding costs already included in service fees.
Also check which completion criteria have been met, which issues remain open and who will address them. Fewer coordination hours do not prove efficiency if necessary decisions or checks have not taken place.
Test your collaboration model with TECHNEST
TECHNEST brings years of experience serving the Japanese market and designing and developing business systems, supported by internal processes standardized through tools developed in-house.
Start with a pilot scope and agree how both sides will record their work. Explore our outsourcing services or contact TECHNEST to discuss a model suited to your current team.
