Outsourcing is all the rage these days. Some people get remarkably het up about the idea, others take a more measured view. But what is the net effect? Is outsourcing really cheaper in the long term? Is it a Good Thing (TM) or a Bad Thing (TM) … or is it just somewhere in between?
My main thought is that it’s understandable. I can see why people who are disadvantaged by offshore outsourcing are upset. I can also understand why the companies are doing it … cost saving is a major driver in a world where there is little else to build competitive advantage on these days. Why spend money on something that you aren’t that sure your company is good at when you could have someone else, who is good at it, sort it out, leaving you to focus on what you really rock at? And finally I can completely understand why the companies and countries being outsourced to want the work. After all, work is work.
I think what’s missing is real, rational discussion about what is realistically going to work and what isn’t. A distinction between teething troubles (like the accent understandability issues that Sue kicks off about … did you know that Indian callcentres are already training their employees to “mask their Indianness”?) and the more permanent issues, like time zones. I really don’t think we’re going to change the shape of the Earth all that soon 😉
(Note: Google thinks I may be wrong….)
At the end of the day, some things are much more conducive to outsourcing than others. Sending all your call centre work off to another country where the people want the career (not just a transient job, as the attitude definitely is in the UK) seems a great idea to me. After the language barrier is overcome, consumers will get much better service from someone who sees a future at that desk, with that headset, than from the 16 year old school dropout, the student working part-time, or any of the other range of stereotypes that tend to inhabit call centres in the Western world.
On the other hand, I have had personal experience of how the time differences can really adversely affect a project being jointly developed between workers in India and the UK. I’ve been up at 4am just to get a headstart on a problem and on a number of occasions I’ve noticed the contractors on the other side of the world still working mid-afternoon UK time … definitely long after they should have been home with their families. So it really doesn’t seem to work too well for our personal lives for a start, but how about the company? How does it fare?
Well, on paper it looks good. Skilled programmers in India definitely go for a lot less than those with a similar level of expertise over here. Cost savings are immense, except for the time wasted on both sides due to misunderstanding, miscommunication and time difference.
Now some people will say that the time difference is a bonus … that you in effect get to have a 12 hour working day without paying anyone extra. This would be true if project tasks followed on from each other exactly … so I work on something, hand it over to the guys in India and by the time I get in the next morning they’ve had a 5 hour head start working on it.
Now, I suppose this could happen … it just didn’t with my particular project. And with that in mind if I were in this situation again then I would probably organise things quite differently. But I have a feeling that complex inter-development is really unlikely to work on this model, with the present state of communication. Emailing doesn’t help, instant messaging doesn’t help the fact that I’m home asleep when someone has a query.
But possibly, this is exactly where project blogs and the like can come to the rescue. If we could communicate just as well across thousands of miles as I know we would if we were all sat at desks in each others near vicinity, then the combination would be unstoppable. After all, the Indian guys I have worked with so far have tehchnical skills FAR superior to mine. On the other hand, the real advantage I bring to the table is the ability to understand the business side, to translate for the programmers.
So what’s the next communication revolution? What’s going to make groupwork across thousands of miles every bit as easy and effective as sitting next to someone and pointing at their screen?
Comments (8) Permalink
October 21st, 2003 at 10:31 PM
Wikis and blogs! But I guess you knew I’d say that.
October 22nd, 2003 at 3:18 PM
I did guess you’d say that, but I still think there’s stuff missing. Is a wiki or a blog really as good as my sitting next to you at a PC in the library and pointing at your code, going “What does this bit do?”
I do see the potential, but we need new ways of using the available opportunities. What should a project blog include? Who should be involved? What is it meant to achieve?
Is a project blog the “story of the project”? Or an area in which to work? Where do the lines blur and what were the lines in the first place?
December 26th, 2003 at 1:19 AM
According to what I’ve read (unfortunately it was a while back and I can’t recall the article), the calldesk staff in India hate the job almost as much as here, and view it as a transient job too. They get a lot of churn, but there are always people who need the jobs.
February 15th, 2004 at 3:02 AM
I have a blog on Outsourcing – An Indian viewpoint at http://blogs.ittoolbox.com.
Kindly visit it if you have the time.
I would appreciate your suggestions and feedback.
Many thanks in advance.
Mahesh Khatri.
Kaytek,India.
March 11th, 2004 at 12:17 PM
Silence Or Compliance
Raymond Donald Pairan Jr.
Copyright (c) 2004 All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
This paper is just a further elaboration on some of the topics that I presented in my work entitled ?The Economy? which I hope has inspired the moral, the passionate, and displaced future working slave class to start inquiring about their ultimate condition within the hands of the business/political elite. It is absolutely wonderful that certain members of the media have started to question the direction and motives of the business/political elite and have beat the bushes where they?ve been hiding thus exposing their true motives to the clear light of day. But make no mistake the business/political elite will stop at nothing to eliminate any opposition be it ethical government, the media, or any other encumbrance that inhibits them from achieving their goal of creating a subservient working class and a contrasting unencumbered business/political elite power base.
SILENCE/COMPLIANCE
At this point in time the media has the business/political elite (forgoing referred to as the controllers) on the defensive at least within the United States, which is in the mist of a presidential election year. Make no mistake the controllers would like to and will eventually silence all media dissent against their planned worldwide domination of all elements that can negatively effect their goal of sucking every last drop of revenue from the world into their realm. If this means devising a means of quelling dissent from those within the media that don?t wish to go quietly with the controllers view ? so be it. Keep in mind that money and power are the driving force of the controllers and everything and anything that inhibits their eventual control over these elements in their eyes must be eliminated. This could mean the off shoring of media jobs to compliant outlets such as India where in the case of the English speaking world there exists a future working slave class that speaks English rather decently. The controllers could then eliminate media disseminated descent to their plans of complete global control over all the factors of production including the eventual working slave class. This means that no job is safe from the plans by the controllers to evolve all jobs into mere subservient, compliant, malleable factors of production. Time is limited for the controllers and others that support the free trade (code word ? free) subjugation over all workingmen and women. The ideologue’s within the future working slave class will blindly follow one another lock step onto the slave ship that will set sail for their future of no dissent, compliance, no morality, no freedom, no future but one of subservience. The time is very near at hand so those within the media that are the moral voice of dissent must take our case to a fever pace in order to expose and keep all rouses from becoming the new molded distorted facts that can be espoused by the controllers. For the controllers their religion is money and power because for them nothing else matters. If they can gain control over not only you the educated working, the hard factory working, the service sector working, then they will be free to build a truly worldwide free market economy where they are free to do what they wish when they wish it.
BEND THE TRUTH LIKE LIGHT THROUGH A PRISM
If you say something enough and if you change the dynamics and distort the facts to your liking then eventually it will be believed by enough people to become the truth. Basically, the controllers just prior to taking complete control over all media dissent will be hard pressed to dispute facts such as 3 million jobs lost in under 3 years, poverty within the United States at record high levels, whole town centers across rural America with a preponderance of vacant store fronts, a trillion dollar deficit, most states within budget crisis, a college education now getting further from the reach of most Americans, and the list goes on and on. Historically speaking when facts don?t convey what the power elite (in our case the controllers) wish than they just change the way those facts are presented so they convey a distorted picture favorable to those in control. This is nothing new and has been employed quite successfully by those in power many times in the past in the form of propaganda. We must maintain focus on the standard measures used within the past and not let the seeping of new measures (touted by the controllers) distort the facts.
THE TIME IS NOW
It is imperative that we work with the media while it is still free to convey the truth about the controller?s objectives and goals. Time is quickly running out for the average working citizen to maintain some semblance of influence over their respective governments. The controllers will and are gaining control over these governments covertly, directly, and through draining the government treasuries converting partially effective governments into impotent shells of past power. Once the controllers are finished with governments than even the political elite will be at jeopardy of becoming obsolete. So those within the political elite may be enjoying the fruits of soiled money conveyed to them by the business controllers but make no mistake once the business controllers have achieved their objectives they will dispose of even the political elite thus eliminating this drain on their coveted profits. There exists one goal of the controllers and that is to extract and drain as much wealth from the world as is possible. The controllers have no God, no religion, no morals, no scruples, and no conscience but only one overriding unquenchable desire ? the complete control over all aspects of their bottom line. They will stop at nothing to satisfy their additive need to acquire more and more wealth at the expense of anything that gets in their way. Any worker that is currently employed by a firm that has global reach over its factors of production (and this doesn?t include many small to medium sized firm?s playing by the rules) are at risk of being eliminated. This includes every imaginable profession since there currently exists the technology and desire (by the controllers) to out source any profession ? first and foremost the media (the thorn within the controllers side). It is imperative that in the next few weeks and months that all of us that count ourselves among the working class keep abreast of issues, meaningful relevant facts, and not be swayed by propaganda spewing from the controllers. We must make our voices heard through written, vocal, and peaceful dissent to the path that the controllers are leading us down. We must not and cannot follow the controllers blindly into a future of no government and working slave subservience. Remember the controllers will use key phrases such as ?free market?, ?household survey?, patriotism, and many others to sway global opinion towards their way of reasoning. Also, keep in mind there are many honest, decent, caring employers (mostly small, medium, and large sized businesses) that are playing by the rules and respect their workers, and communities. It is probably only a few but powerful firms making up the Fortune 500 that are the real controllers of a destiny of worker subservience. I will continue to write the unpopular truth be it what may come. You should continue to question, reason, and judge the facts and not be swayed by propaganda. Let the facts speak for themselves because they surely will if given the chance!
August 16th, 2004 at 3:00 PM
A Canadian perspective –
(which is still just another version of a North American perspective)…
A number of things about outsourcing jump out at me:
Indian workers having to “mask” their Indian-ness.
Hiding an identity…denying a nationality…
“Image” creation…as if saying…”Well…I’m just as American as you (the caller) are…because I “sound” that way.
So sound itself is being manipulated through a medium (the telephone).
The overall effect….? A worker cannot be the nationality they are in order to be gainfully employed.
I work in a university library where absolutely no discrimination is allowed based on nationality, race, color, religion, creed, etc.
Linguistic ability is an absolute must…but still the only criteria upon which competence is judged.
I cannot in good conscience blame anyone anywhere for grabbing any employment that comes their way (on a global basis).
Having read much recently about outsourcing…I have found no studies that show just exactly how much a corporation can save in labor costs.
Information such as that would be conducive to a better understanding of the economics involved.
For instance…I hear the statement all the time…”Necessary to remain competitive within the new…global economy.” (But what does this really mean?)
If the answer to that is only skyrocketing profit margins…than all it really means is another triumph for business over labor.
So much blue collar work has disappeared because of outsourcing…and the job losers in that sector have not had as loud or powerful a voice.
However, when this happens in the white collar sector, the response is quite different.
Incidentally….Ireland is also a target resource for outsourcing…and I have never seen anything about it…as a negative response…but to me that speaks volumes in itself.
Also…call center jobs are indeed just that…jobs, as opposed to careers. (How many outsourced workers are over-educated and skilled beyond the work they do?)
So does the work itself not become kind of a quick bandaid solution that in itself does not solve the ongoing problem of a lack of meaningful employment in the long run?
Short term solutions and quick results are the order of the day…and in business…where stockholders and investers need to be coddled, pampered and mollified…this “cost” of doing business does not solve the far-reaching problems and consequences of a gobal economy.
By the way…I was in Ireland 2 years ago…the economy there looks healthy on the surface…
However, in many areas where the cost of houses has soared to as much as half a million to three quarters of a million Euro-dollars for a very ordinary little house….(well, who can afford that?) Not the outsource call center workers, that’s for sure!
America had a lot of fun until the high-tech bubble burst in the late 90’s. A lot of so-called wealth was after all, artificial. Millions of people are now struggling for a new perspective, trying to re-think their way to a new reality (while corporations make off like bandits.)
Main street America (a cultural institution) has disappeared, replaced by the giant supercenter box store market, and what has disappeared along with it is the social and cultural identity of the common working person. The dignity of work has disappeared into the mad scramble for economic survival.
In short, a good blue collar job that paid $15 US has been replaced by a service industry job (a fast food counter?) job that pays half that. (These jobs of course, cannot be outsourced!)
The net result? Half the income…the need for not one but 2 full-time jobs, the 80 hour workweek…and if not successful with this measure, then the debt load incurred by second and third mortgages on the family home, and maxing out every credit card. It’s a mess.
Needless to say, people are not adjusting very well. They have been caught in a new reality. These are real lives effected, not statistics.
I believe good dialogue and communication is necessary between and among working people. We have, after all, a common struggle, and need to understand what is going on around us.
October 30th, 2003 at 3:17 AM
Outsourcing and the Innovator’s Dilemma
The outsourcing discussion continues. The subject came up on the ChAD mailing list….
March 15th, 2004 at 4:08 AM
Blogspammer ID: Raymond Donald Pairan Jr., Labor Activist
ouch. this guy got around a long time before he found me (he had to dig very, very deep – 20th page of google looking for ‘”job loss” blog’). not pushing a product, exactly, but certainly pushing a political agenda…