Decision Design "Homeshores" at Hacienda

By George Walsh, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Growing Company Expands at CarrAmerica Corporate Center

Decision Design Corporation, a custom software development firm that currently has offices in Hacienda at 5980 Stoneridge Drive, announced in January that it has entered into an agreement to lease 7,000 square feet of new office space at 4420 Rosewood Drive at Hacienda's CarrAmerica Corporate Center to accommodate growth in its Homeshoring segment. The new facility is expected to be fully operational in March of this year.

"We added four additional employees last year and our current space in the Pleasanton office was becoming too small for us," says Monty Davis, president of Decision Design. "We're happy that the new space is still in Hacienda, and the fact that it is more than double the size of our Stoneridge Drive location should help us to accommodate our company's growth."

Because Decision Design serves as a contractor to other companies, none of the software they create bears their company name. "We develop software products for the sale or internal use of our customers," Davis says. "Our products are owned by our customers and usually the end user doesn't even know we worked on them." Decision Design's business focus is in "homeshoring" and "software remediation" in software development. Software remediation is targeted at rescuing failing software development projects. For example, sometimes a company will contract a software development company to do work for them that ends up being unsatisfactory. They can then hire Decision Design to get the project back on track. Homeshoring serves companies looking for local low-cost alternatives to contracting software development projects to companies outside the U.S.

In fact, Davis attributes much of his company's success to the challenges of outsourcing development projects overseas. "There's a gigantic flow of work to companies outside the U.S., but working with these companies isn't always the best option for companies looking to outsource development work," Davis says. "We actually set up an offshore center ourselves at one point to lower our costs and ran it for two years. We found that, by and large, it was not as cost effective as we had anticipated. The product quality wasn't as good as what we expected of ourselves. We then closed that operation and shifted our strategy to make our U.S. operations inexpensive, effective, and high quality to see if we could compete with the offshore companies." While some of the projects undertaken by Decision Design for its clients are contracted as an alternative to having them done outside the U.S., an increasing amount of the company's business is in bringing failed projects back here to be completed to the customer's satisfaction after an unsuccessful offshore effort has been attempted.

In addition to its facility in Hacienda, Decision Design has offices in Bannockburn, Ill., in the Chicago area. The company has 20 employees overall, with seven located in Illinois and the remainder located in Pleasanton. Decision Design celebrated its tenth anniversary this month. "We wanted to be located in California because of its software development resources," Davis says. "Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are very rich in technology. Hacienda has been the right place for us because it is what we like to think of as a 'friend' of Silicon Valley. Pleasanton allows us to have less expensive operations while still having access to all the resources that are around the Bay Area. It's a great place to be."

Photo: Ed Mitchener (left) and Kurt Johnson will enjoy the views from Decision Design's new offices on the fifth floor of the CarrAmerica Center.

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