Long Term Effects of Outsourcing

simulate writes "There have been several postings about outsourcing and offshoring in the past few weeks. Is outsourcing just a fad? In Outsourcing Programmers is Bad Strategy for Software Companies author Michael Bean compares offshoring to the enthusiasm for Internet startups in the Nineties. He claims that outsourcing programmers is bad for companies not because of the programmer layoffs, but because technology companies lose their capacity to innovate. Offshoring is a mistake when technology companies confuse operational effectiveness and strategy." I don't think the comparasion to Dot Bombs is entirely accurate - the trend to globalization overall has been going on for decades. Still interesting piece.

Comments

Outsourcing Solution Here

[swordboy]

Business Week had a good article on this a while back. Problem solved. The water will seek its own level.

Re:It'll get worse before it gets better...

[gorfie]

From what I've heard, they only did this for their corporate lines... OptiPlex & Latitude. If you call in for support concerning the Dimension or Inspiron lines you will still have a great deal of fun trying to communicate effectively. Of course, corporate purchases account for 85% of their sales from what I read...

A different perspective

[GeckoFood]

Having just come from a company that was rabildly outsourcing, we saw a different backlash of the outsourcing problem. The execs were outsourcing everything they possibly could, even when it made no sense. However, the company was still not going to be positively improved financially by this happening. What everyone remaining on staff could see is that it would boost short-term profits just long enough for the execs to rape the company with fat bonuses just before bailing out. That's apparently another popular trend.

Re:It'll get worse before it gets better...

[segment]

bottom line comes from Pleasing customers Sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm sure there are plenty here who'll differ with you on Dell pleasing their customers. As for outsourcing, those on the Sunmanagers list can definitely vouch on this statement, and I in no way mean to offend anyone. For all the outsourcing going to India, I have to wonder whether American companies are losing more in the long run considering the type of quality of the work of the inexperienced.

Ok I'm tired so I'll try to explain a bit. The majority of posts I've been seeing on the Sunmanagers mailing lists are often questions as dub as "How do I reebot my e450 thank you Jawalahar!", and that's scary. If I'm saving say $400 for outsourcing but paying $200 in downtime because an admin is a moron, $100 in downtime waiting for the idiot admin to get a reply from a mailing list, where is the savings? $100 you say? What happens if I lose customers while my business is down?

eg:

Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:11:29 -0500 (EST)
From: Sundaram Ramasamy <sun!!@percipia.com>
To: sunmanagers@!!sunmanagers.org
Subject: sendmail mqueue files

hi,

Solaris mail server mailq command shows only two request is waiting.

But /var/spool/mqeue has 81 files, Some of them 1 year old can I delete
these file?

Thanks
SR

Again, apologies if it seems I' nitpicking but I'm not, I just notice the majority of questions that are for one: easily resolveable to an experienced admin, easily resolveable via googling, are posted by people in countries that American chooses to use for outsourcing.