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Jobs to India -- A Broad Look
dumpster_dave writes "Wired has an excellent 7 page article on the current and future trend and nature of IT outsourcing from the United States. The conclusion: the smell of inevitability--the economy will survive, though your job, as it is currently, will likely not. Outsourcing is expected to expand from Service and code projects to the creative aspects as well, with obvious correlations experienced in the manufacturing industry during the 70s and 80s. An excellent read that provides good coverage of the perspectives of players on all sides."
Outsourcing everything to India was in vogue around '97 or '98. It didn't work then and it's not going to work now. But everyone forgets the problems and history repeats itself.
If you don't like this fad, wait five minutes...
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
I was just reading up on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and how we have to be responsible for everyone who ever touches or affects our digital documents (and we are financially responsible for damages real or perceived). Our lawyers seem to think that if you read the law strictly (as any lawyer trying to sue would) that means that any offshoring that results in any damage or dissemination of data could cause us an enormous amount of money. We already carry a $100 million bond against accidental release of data (we deal in multi-billion dollar international contracts) and our carry gave a big 'NO" to outsourcing in any way shape or form. Hell, I can't even get opensource software in here because if something goes wrong, there is no one to sue.
Crazy world...
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
The six Hexawarians are sympathetic but unmoved. They disagree with the very premise that cheap labor is hurting the US.
Seriously, then they need a brain refresher. This is one of the core issues, and it's really simple: Companies seek to maximize profit and minimize expenses. Expenses decrease with cheap labor. If cheap labor is outside the U.S., and can be logistically implemented for the company as such, there's a good chance they'll move some operations offshore. And this has in fact happened.
And they think it's somewhat laughable that, because things aren't going exactly our way, ordinarily change-infatuated Americans are suddenly decrying change.
How on earth is this a laughable thing? Change for the better, change for our better, is a totally pragmatic and understandable goal. When this goal is hurt, yes, we decry it. There's nothing laughable about that at all.
Translation: We're not just cheaper, we're better.
Tell that to Dell.
The coolest voice ever.
Yes you heard me , let them NOT move to india. The last thing I want as an Indian, my country to be columbia/mexico of the IT industry. I think indians should be ashamed to be the janitors of IT industry.
Also for those of who are going to point to M$ and IBM and HP research centers being moved to India. I would rather see our own Indian companies becoming more self relient and working for the benefit of Indian consumers than US.
The more India depends upon foreign lands to create local jobs, the less it becomes self relinet and lesser powerful.
India for one should take lessons from its colonial past. Rememer East india company came as traders looking for spices and ended up ruling the country for 200 years. This time its going to be different, its economical slavery that we should be afraid of. In this day an age no power is better than economical power and serving joe six-packs for their problems loggin on to AOL, though a short term profitable business , is ruining the resourses of the country.
I am not ranting against US. Infact exactly the opposite. The US and its companies should also strive towards self serving economical structure.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Have anyone considered the privacy and security issues when sending this information to foreign companies? The call center for American Express in India may not have the same security and legal protection for your records -- but then again with the patriot act, we don't have any privacy anyways.
Fight Spammers!
About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. My employer is none the wiser. I pay him $12,000 to do the job I get paid $67,300 for. He is happy to have the work. I am happy that I only have to work about 90 minutes per day (I still have to attend meetings myself, and I spend a few minutes every day talking code with my Indian counterpart). The rest of the time my employer thinks I'm telecommuting. They are happy to let me telecommute because my output is higher than most of my coworkers.
Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing with it. That may be pushing my luck though. The extra money would be nice, but that could push my workday over five hours.
So I toss a slur across her desk. I call her a protectionist.
"Oh, and I'm proud of it," she responds. "I wear that badge with honor. I am a protectionist. I want to protect America. I want to protect jobs for Americans."
"But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I counter. "We've done it before - going from farm to factory, from factory to knowledge work, and from knowledge work to whatever's next."
She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."
love is just extroverted narcissism
I agree, and I feel like the effects are evident already. Ive completed a MS in CS, and it seems harder and harder to find jobs that let you "get your foot in the door". Everybody wants 10 years of blah-blah experience, but how do I get experience with specialized enterprise development tools when I do tech support all day? I mean, I cant even get an interview at my own company (300k employees, worlds largest courier service...) because I dont have copies of BEA software installed at home to play with.
I mean, if it's guaranteed that those entry-level/junior positions are going the way of the buffalo, I will have no experience for those mystical "pure knowledge" positions, should they ever appear. Have I mis-invested 7 years and tens of thousands of dollars on the wrong college degree? Should I just say F*** it all, give away all my hardware, and go get a paper MBA from Sallie Struthers and become a store manager at a Target or something? It's like having a degree in model ship building. Sure it's hard and it takes decades to be considered a master, but only a few really make money for doing it the old fashioned way, and most people just get their model ships from a store that buys them from overseas where they are made for cheap.
From the duped article, p5: "Your very nature will drive you to fight," Lord Krishna tells Arjuna. "The only choice is what to fight against."
sorry for the rant, but its tough these days
--B
Its not as simple as, yes it will, or no it won't happen. From my experience, it was a mixed bag.
... you get the icture
Used elance.com to find Sidharth over in Bangalore. Sid was cool, spents lots of time with us, hours of Q and A on our online spring break site. He did a good job on the coding, but when it came to getting the ever important cultural aspects of the project, it was a disaster.
Our launch day promoted our Discount Trips to Cancum.
Ummm. Sid, no, Cancun...
Oh. Very Sorry Sirs... next Day. Diskount trips to Cancum
TripInvite.com: Group Travel Made Simple Evit
Silly troll, you make the classic mistake of likening programming to manufacturing. There is *no* similarity, because each programming project is different. No manufacturing plant in the world makes each item different.
Artists and craftsmen make unique items, and so do programmers (yes, even in Java). It is an inescapeable fact.
Outsourcing has a chance at working, not because it is the same as manufacturing, but simply because it appears to be cheaper than doing it locally.
Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use - Mark Twain
- If a resource doesn't give you a competitive advantage, you can outsource it without any damage. But if it is a key differentiator, NEVER outsource it.
Too many companies seem to be forgetting this these days. If it's your core competitive advantage, you can't outsource it.If you need to develop better technology, if your products need to be higher quality, if your customer service needs to be better than your competitors, you can't outsource that part of your business. Any competitor can duplicate anything you've outsourced, often as easily as hiring the same subcontractor, so anything that is oursourced can't be a source of competitive advantage in your market.
Through the power of lending we can increase our GNP completely through services.
And what happens when the Indians and the Chinese have absorbed so much of our know how through on-hands tech-transfer, that they don't need us anymore? Indian firms are already partnering with US drug companies, not as low-cost manufacturers, but as co-developers. Chinese firms are already buying whole US plants, lock, stock, and barrel, AND the company name/brands (ie, DustDevil). It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine a future where the US is nothing more than a stock market, and a few banks - and what happens when foreign banks/stock markets adopt US style accounting/regulation, and start undercutting us?
I think the key problem is that to meet the future you envision (ie, pure knowledge/research/services), we need to train people who are technically and creatively competent to work and innovate in those fields. I don't see that product coming out of our school system, which keeps churning out workers fit for that was hot 5-10 years ago, and not for what will be hot 5-10 years from now.
We might benefit from deflationary pressures on foreign-made products and services for a long time. But we'll have become a nation of extreme debtors, with a bedrock in agriculture and finance, and everything else outsourced.
While best will survive (ie, small machine shops, small coding shops, etc.), where will everyone else go? Unless we develop completely new industries that will require jobs in the US, we're going to have a large surplus of labor, just as we did in the 80's during the last big transition. Space exploitation maybe, or maybe US migratory workers going to Mexico and Canada, instead of the other way around?
Ironically, I'd suggest that manufacturing might be the salvation of the US economy - provided that we can lower the cost of raw materials and energy. With mechanization reducing labor costs, cheap energy and raw materials would allow the US to compete with foreign manufacturers, and allow the employment of more US sale agents, distributors, transporters (ie, truck drivers and train engineers), and lower the cost of shipping those goods.
In other words, you want more jobs in the US? Then we either need more nuclear power plants, or we need to invent working sustainable, net energy out fusion, quick.