Slashdot Mirror
Mumbai Bombings Give Outsourcing Community Pause
theodp writes "eWeek reports that the big fear of offshore outsourcing customers has become a reality: a major bombing attack in an outsourcing hub. In the wake of the attack, companies are considering their resources and preparedness. Despite understandable fears, people on the ground don't seem to think these latest attacks will have a long-term effect on the growth of India's tech sector." From the article: "The terrorist attack in Mumbai--and conflict between Israel and Lebanon for that matter--raise a series of questions for companies sourcing technology globally. Do you know the disaster recovery plans of your offshore services provider? Are their plans integrated with yours? And how prepared are these providers? "
Maybe it's time to consider moving those outsourced tech jobs back to a safe, terrorism-free city like London, Madrid or New York.
How is outsourcing any different from sub contracting within your own country in this respect? Quoth the article:
Quite.
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
No, it raises a very good question.
Are they ready for it? You can't just pick any non-industrialized nation, point and say "this is where our billion dollar software project will be made."
I'm not saying smack about India [cuz frankly I've never been there] but if the region isn't ready for the business in terms of economic, academic and political stability then maybe it isn't wise to DEPEND on them for your business?
It's one thing to ADD to your team with developers from other nations, e.g. setup a firm in Ireland or HK or something. It's another alltogether to depend solely on foreign assets.
Frankly I like the idea of spreading jobs around the globe, but only if the recipients are actually qualified to do the job. And while I like beating up on the average lame india post [see comp.lang.c] I'm not foolish enough to think that North Americans are all that much better in that regard.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why do we always outsource to places that are stuck in eternal struggles. Seriously, when was the last time Iceland or New Zeland had some terrorist plot or civil war ensue.
Two hundred innocent people are killed and people are worried that future events like these might cause an IT outage?
Yes. Specifically, they are people who have the responsibility to prevent or otherwise deal with IT outages.
The people who think the only moral thing to do in a crisis is to be emotionally overwrought are of no use to anyone when a crisis occurs. You can go sit in a closet and cry while the rest of us solve problems for the people who didn't get killed.
Come of folks. So the world's largest democratic country with the world's largest population of English speaking citizens has one city bombed and the US is going to rethink its direction to outsource technology workers there? Nope!
In fact, many of the export centers are not in the city center and were unaffected by this event. Knowing many Indians, those that were will be back up and running in no time flat no matter what it takes.
Now, there may be reasons to rethink outsourcing such as low productivity, higher costs, poor quality of work, and customer relation issues but this is not one of them.
The best wishes of many people in the US go out to every Indian and we stand in solidarity with the many many millions of peace loving, free citizens of that nation.
not industrialized != politically unstable. look at uruguay, it's a fucking haven.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Yea... I am from India and this is the worst kind of FUD I have seen. Terrorist attacks form a much smaller risk then fire, floods and other hazards. A city capable of dealing with those can pretty much handle any such terrorist emergencies. This article is pure FUD.
Excuse me. I am an Indian and I live in Mumbai. Within 6-8 hours of the blasts the railway system had resumed completely. Everybody resumed their work on the very next day. Schools, Colleges, Offices - everything remained open. Nobody panicked. There was no chaos. There were no riots. Life was as it was before the bombings. Only thing that is worth mentioning was that the telephone networks ( cellular and POTS ) were jammed due to excessive calls. Oh and yes, people were searching for the dead / injured ones. But that has nothing to do with technology right? :/
Now compare this with what happened in London, Madrid, NYC. Being in a particular region doesnt make you 100% safe from such things. It can happen to anywhere, at any place without any warning.
Putting aside emotional reactions which would cause me to make comments like: "people are dying and yet you are thinking about IT infrastructures"... (I am an Indian, and have lots of relatives and friends in Mumbai). I know that life went on after the blasts. I know that the big IT companies in India are world leaders when it comes to having processes and procedures concerning their business. (I am in the IT industry myself). In my experience, most of the clients that I have worked with have had little or no processes themselves. So, it is unfair to think of this in a light where India (the country being out-sourced to) needs to have back-up plans, and disaster recovery procedures. Anyway, I think that the whole world is fair game for terrorist activities (terrorists being what they are), so we should be discussing about these procedures, plans, etc. at a global level. - Vaibhav