Marc Stuessel is a freelance consultant with more than 10 years' experience. His main areas of expertise are the design of large-scale Java enterprise systems in the German automotive and airline industries and leading multinational developers implementing these systems. During the past four years, Mr. Stuessel has participated in offshore software development projects with Indian as well as Central and Eastern European suppliers. This experience has given him the opportunity to see firsthand how important the preparation of offshoring initiatives is. Participating in these offshore projects led to his interest in the economic aspects of system development and the alignment of IT and business issues. Mr. Stuessel can be reached at marc.stuessel at syntesion.de.