The popular press calls it a "culture" and "logistical" problem. The solution is "cross sourcing" according to this article in the Economic Times of India. Xpanxion an Atlanta based software outsourcing company is moving back it’s quality testing and deployment activities to Nebraska. The company wants to take the best of the world! They want to avail of low cost programming in India but want to retain the high contact and highly contextual end of things in the US. Makes sense both for cost and for quality. For doing the integration and quality control work at Nebraska will certainly be less expensive than California or New York.
What the press calls "culture" and "logistics" in services is correctly called "situated learning" and "contextual" in academe.The difference is clear if you consider moving a bunch of US born programmers to India or China and after a year or two still expect them to exactly understand the US customer requirements by "osmosis"!
In an inter-connected global world the ability to do this co-ordination and integration well will be key to success….