Jeff Burk, the CIO of NeatReceipts (the folks that sell receipt scanners in airport kiosks and electronics retailers) has this interesting perspective about going to China for development expertise.

Mr. Burk describes three major challenges - language skills, time differences and IP losses - as major issues in doing engineering in China. In addition, Burk mentions project management as a key challenge in dealing in this market.

Key to this (a recurring story) is a disciplined project management approach. Of course, this is true if you outsource to Beijing, Bangalore or Baltimore.

As Mr. Burk's article indicates, putting proper project management in place is probably the single best way of increasing the chance of outsourcing success.