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The US Is Becoming a Hot Spot For Outsourcing (bendbulletin.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the hot-spot dept.

New submitter cdreimer shares a report from The New York Times (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source) about how companies are now outsourcing in the United States, hiring from Michigan instead of Mumbai. From the report: For years, American companies have been saving money by "offshoring" jobs -- hiring people in India and other distant cubicle farms. Today, some of those jobs are being outsourced again -- in the United States. Nexient, a software outsourcing company, reflects the evolving geography of technology work. It holds daily video meetings with one of its clients, Bill.com, where team members stand up and say into the camera what they accomplished yesterday for Bill.com, and what they plan to do tomorrow. The difference is, they are phoning in from Michigan, not Mumbai. "It's the first time we've been happy outsourcing," said Rene Lacerte, the chief executive of Bill.com, a bill payment-and-collection service based in Palo Alto, Calif. Nexient is a domestic outsourcer, a flourishing niche in the tech world as some American companies pull back from the idea of hiring programmers a world away. Salaries have risen in places like South Asia, making outsourcing there less of a bargain. In addition, as brands pour energy and money into their websites and mobile apps, more of them are deciding that there is value in having developers in the same time zone, or at least on the same continent.

12 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Outsourcing is just a way by fred911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    for employers to avoid paying benefits and their part of FICA by hiring subcontractors.

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    1. Re:Outsourcing is just a way by Karmashock · · Score: 1, Insightful

      People were told that the labor rules were dumb and would have undesired consequences. People didn't listen. Predicted consequences occured... and somehow the People that made bad mistakes with bad consequences retained their credibility.

      That generally doesn't happen in any mission critical environment because it is counter productive to have stupid people make choices. But that's not how politics works. If people believe in doing dumb things it doesn't matter how many times it fails... they get to keep voting for the same dumb thing. Its like communism... fails every time... idiot communists still want to try it again. The radical labor policies of the last 100 years have directly lead to the collapse of the manufacturing competitiveness of pretty much everywhere they were applied... no, the collapse doesn't happen instant... it takes decades in some cases for the policies to break an industry. But it happens.

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    2. Re:Outsourcing is just a way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You wouldn't have any rights as a worker without those "radical" labor policies. The rest of your post is a ripple from the 1950s. Gotta watch out for the red menace!!! ohnoes!

      Now if your argument is *lucid*, something like "Outsourcing is a bad idea", then there's a lot to talk about there.

      If manufacturing collapsed because we started treating people better, then I think it makes it rather clear what manufacturing companies did to gain profit: they paid their staff shit and treated them like shit. Most of these people were also desperate and the plant was likely one of the only employers big enough to employ everyone. Should we be rewarding these companies for cutting corners on human treatment? Maybe we can get more Foxconns on the news. How far does it have to go before you think workers deserve consideration?

      Now that people know they have rights, it's made labor harder to get and nigh impossible to keep. People know they can be treated better, and over the decades countless companies have destroyed any incentive to be loyal to one's employer. Employers dug themselves that grave, and they'll have to lay in it.

  2. ARRRRGGGG! by youngone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It holds daily video meetings with one of its clients, Bill.com, where team members stand up and say into the camera what they accomplished yesterday for Bill.com, and what they plan to do tomorrow.

    Which sounds like an absolute living hell.
    I bet after a few weeks of being told they haven't accomplished enough for Bill.com today, and their plan for tomorrow isn't good enough, the really good workers leave and find a job where their boss doesn't look over their shoulder every day.

    1. Re:ARRRRGGGG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > Not any different from a daily 5-min 'standup'

      Daily 5-min 'finger-pointing sessions', you mean. :)

      Seriously, though, for team members who aren't working on the same task, these are a complete waste of time and only serve to reassure managers that the team is keeping busy.

    2. Re: ARRRRGGGG! by Reverend+Green · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apparently no one - anywhere, ever - does scrum right. Or maybe it's time to admit scrum is just a shittastic methodology.

  3. I briefly consulted for an "near shoring" firm by plague911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Their pitch was basically "We are not complete and utter shit like Infosys or Wipro." Which provided a startling level of value to customers.

  4. So...mr. Trump... by MindPrison · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...was actually onto something?

    Keep jobs - American. Well played, sir!

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    1. Re:So...mr. Trump... by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think we have to give Trumpo some credit. He shook the overseas-based outsourcing market by introducing fear, uncertainty, and doubt into it such that companies are less likely to want to depend on it exclusively or heavily.

      His most effective strategy has been the bully pulpit. Getting legislation passed has been a bear for him, and Executive Orders have had relatively limited impact compared to other newly elected Presidents.

      In addition to overseas outsourcing, border crossings appear to be down, possibly on the threat that he'll make life difficult for undocumented visitors.

      Some also give him credit for the alleged stock market surge by promising to cut taxes and regulation, although the stock trends have been arguably the same for about 6 years if one ignores smaller bumps and dips.

      USA has a new 4th branch of gov't: the Shouting Branch...or the Twitter Branch.

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    2. Re:So...mr. Trump... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      His most effective strategy has been the bully pulpit.

      I don't think Trump is the definition of "bully" that Teddy had in mind.

  5. near shoring is the winner by dave4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not so much the distance or the timezone that is a problem with India, or even the culture. It's the companies that run scam like business models by putting low quality engineers into place and training them on your clock. Recently Tata consultancy had a large round of firings of senior staff because engineers that are actually good at what they do would be expensive to retain and thus make less profit. There are many good engineers in India. But they work for the companies that pay well like Google or they become managers. If you buy cheap, you get what you pay for. One problem however is that there are not enough people going into software development and at one point the only way to get people is to look over the border.

  6. Re:I'll hire. by Entrope · · Score: 3, Insightful

    American programmers are lazy, impatient, and hubristic. That's why they're good programmers.