CIO Magazine On Offshore IT

lpq wrote to us with a reference to the cover article from this month's CIO Magazine that talks about the off-shore movement of IT from its traditional bulwarks to the developing world. A selection from the article:" Think again. There are real costs associated with shipping your IT department (or a portion of it) overseas. Our Special Report covers the Backlash from a growing political storm as well as the Hidden Costs you should be aware of before you join the stampede overseas. "

Comments

More proof that common sense isn't common

[jbellis]

As well as evidence of how fad-driven the IT industry is. There is still no magic bullet but vendors -- and no less the press -- continue to drum up every new toy as if it were The One.

Sad that people who spend years on an MBA degree that presumably includes a course on Spotting The Obvious 101 can't, well, spot the obvious.

Contact

[rf0]

I've always found that when things are outsourced (or moved offshore) is that the dialog between the users and the devlopers/support etc breaks down. The idea of IT is to help the company function and for that a good dialog is needed during development etc.

There is nothing to compensate for talking round the water cooler and say "Whilst I think of it...". I hoenstly believe that the development costs might be lower but overall it will cost more on the bottom line

Rus

The company I work for just announced..

[GreenCrackBaby]

..that they will be increasing their Indian workforce. They did it with quite a play on words too.

With the success of this initial stage and with our need for resources continuing to grow, we will be resourcing to grow this team substantially in the coming weeks.

While we are directly recruiting in India now, we would also welcome your recommendations of suitable external applicants that you may be aware of as potential permanent employees in Bangalore.

Applicants should have 3-5 years experience in billing system deployment with perl, SQL, Oracle and Unix skills. Willingness to travel internationally and to be based and paid in India is a requirement.


Here's what bugs me about my company specifically, and the trend of moving work to India generally:

1. My company is trying to do this covertly, like we wouldn't notice more and more layoffs in our offices in North America and Europe while at the same time increased staffing in India and a requirement that those Indian workers must be willing to travel internationally.

If you are going to farm your workers out to India , at least be honest about it and admit what you are doing, all in the name of a temporary increase to share price....which leads me to point two:

2. If your company will go bankrupt unless you move your workforce to India, then fine. But if you are going there to save a few bucks and make the share price jump 1/4 point, then fuck you. I get billed out at around $300 US per hour, of which I see less than $30 US. Isn't that enough of a profit margin? Maybe we should bring back slavery so that they can make that margin jump to a full 100% of the $300!

I don't hold anything against India workers, but I truly hate any corporation that farms work to India (and other cheap countries) all for the sake of a quick buck.

Re:Screw free trade

[molarmass192]

I'm not saying yes or no -but- remember that tariffs are very effective on physical goods since those goods all go through customs on their way in/out. That's arguably not so easy with "work units" and it's very easy to spot loopholes to exploit any system they try to put in place. If you have an offshore subsidiary farming out the work, then where's the tariff going to be collected? Since there's no effective way of measuring a "work unit" there's no effective way of running it through the customs system.

Re:Hidden agenda?

[Politburo]

The agenda isn't hidden. We would like to keep our fucking jobs, or for those of us just out of college, we would like jobs to begin with. Selfish? Perhaps. Hidden? No.

Common Sense is Tricky:Outsourcing but NO to H-1Bs

[reporter]

Common sense can be deceptive. Common sense says that outsourcing will destroy American jobs, but actually, in the long run, outsourcing will help to preserve jobs and Western society.

How? First, please visit the web site that explains "H-1B Myths". Professor Matloff, who teaches computer science at a top-notch university, has campaigned tirelessly to terminate the H-1B program.

Anyhow, we have only 2 choices.

1. H-1B employment but no outsourcing.
2. Outsourcing but no H-1B employment.

The second choice is best and will result in the long-term gain of jobs for Americans. The United States of America (USA) is a big market, and companies will set up shop in the USA once their share of the market reaches a certain critical size. As well, domestic content laws facilitate this trend. Toyota and Honda are excellent examples; they have built huge manufacturing and design facilities in the USA.

Further, by terminating H-1B employment, you ensure that American jobs stay with Americans.

The second choice also directly deals with the strongest bogus argument by unethical American companies like Intel and possibly Google. Even when Silicon Valley has 8% unemployment, they insist that cannot find American workers for critical jobs and that they must hire H-1Bs. We in the Slashdot community should say, "Fine. Go set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."

... from the desk of the reporter