is a unique resource allocation model that enables Mastech the ability to provide cost-effective project guidance and input to clients during the entire engagement process.

How Does It Work?

A Mastech Manager (from the Support Office in either Pittsburgh PA or Washington D.C.-saves on travel expenses to our clients) provides critical support in defining, structuring, and overseeing the project plan jointly created by you and Mastech.

This role provides necessary infrastructure and supervision to ensure jointly agreed-upon milestones are met on time, and on budget.

The Manager ensures that projects are optimally staffed and fully equipped to meet your project requirements. This business model allows our clients the confidence to focus on the management of the key design and implementation stages necessary to successfully complete IT projects, while we oversee the day-to-day project challenges.

Derived from the experience of hundreds of projects

Established cross-practice teams comprised of senior field consultants and staff promote the effective and efficient use of Mastech's Methodologies, Best Practices, and Services across all practices and Industries. encourages the formation of a close relationship between your project manager and our practice consultants and technology council members.

Clients across North America recognize this unique model as a great way to leverage the organizational strengths of our vast technical and management expertise.

Just a small example of the types of projects that the OneSource Sourcing model has benefited include:

• Enhancing and extending enterprise functionality
• Combining Data Quality and Integrity Initiatives with Advanced CRM Capabilities
• Deployment of eBusiness Solutions
• ERP Migration and Upgrades
• Lay the foundation for future strategic initiatives

Mastech's OneSource Model has also been effectively used in Custom Application Development.

Why is Effective?
Using our approach, Mastech and our clients work together to design, structure, and implement IT solutions. This process is a whole new approach to IT projects, and a refreshing change from the "fully managed" and "pure-staffing" approaches prevalent in the industry.

This model offers your organization the flexibility to choose the level of input you need, based on your environment and individual needs. Furthermore, your organization's investment is specifically tailored to your environment; you only pay for the level of involvement you need.

Why is it better than the traditional service offerings widely available in the industry?

Control is unintentionally relinquished in a Fully-Managed environment:

Under a fully managed/Outsourced Solutions approach, consulting firms take full responsibility for the design, structure and implementation of a project with littleor no input from the client following the initial stages of the engagement.

This model requires significant expenditures, due to the risk that consulting firms assume for being responsible for the entire project. It does not allow clients to effectively control the evolution of an engagement, and often clients end up paying for overhead without even realizing it. Moreover, many solutions firms end up staffing these engagements with junior-level talent, or 'baiting and switching' their top-level talent throughout the project.

Clients end up paying top-dollar for their talent that is ramping up on their dime. Perhaps the most unfortunate piece of fully managed initiatives is that these providers seldom have any incentive to help empower your organization through knowledge transfer, which misses a golden opportunity for your staff to learn how to handle the application after the consulting partner leaves your site.

Pure-Staff Augmentation doesn't offer skin-in-the game:

Firms operating under the pure staffing model leave all responsibility for the design, structure and implementation of a project to the client and simply provide the human resources necessary to assist the client in the completion of a project.

While this business model is cost effective, it requires a significant commitment by the client to assemble a team of IT professionals, usually from multiple vendors, and to manage the project on a daily basis. Since no vendor has any deliverable responsibility in this model, the risk is 100% on the client's side; not as efficient or effective as the model because there is less of a partnership and relationship between the client and the consulting firm in a staff-augmentation only model.

With , you get the many of the benefits of a fully managed solution, and the cost-effectiveness of staff augmentation, without the risk.

Scale and magnitude of engagements for services

In our experience, engagements involving five-twenty onsite consultants with project durations of between three-nine have been optimal for this model. We participate in a wide spectrum of software development and package implementations projects, so check with your Mastech Liaison to see how OneSource may work for your initiative's particular size and scope.

Pricing Considerations for

Billing for our OneSource services is a flexible process options, depending on your needs. Some options include:

• Per resource: We can structure the project team based on specific requirements and set up a billing schedule tailored to those resources
• Team based billing: Single fee for the entire team based on collective hours or a flat rate on per-period basis
• Blended Rate: Based on a blended rate - Even though the project team may be comprised of many different types of resources we can establish a single blended rate per resource

Contact your Mastech liaison to talk about customized pricing around your project specifics.

Areas where we can assist

Software and IT driven business initiatives often create a challenging environment during both planning and implementation phases. Mastech provides strategic and tactical assistance on a variety of areas and offers the collective experience of many years and many types of projects.

Some examples of how OneSource has helped North American Clients include:

• Planning and implementing a Program Management Office
• Scoping, categorizing, and estimating different projects you may want to execute with assistance from Mastech resources.
• Planning, creating work breakdown structures (WBS), and scheduling specific projects utilizing joint resources and infrastructure
• Tool and Infrastructure provisions (Issue Management Systems, Defect Tracking System, and Knowledge Repositories)
• Assisting in project tracking activities & mechanisms around a preset infrastructure