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Web Design & Hosting
905 hits
Jan 15, 2004 5:48 pm |
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OUTSOURCING - Problems I experienced and some thoughts... |
Jon Myers
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I've been involved with several outsourcing initiatives, and even lived in India for almost a year project managing development initiatives for a major media company. I speak Mandarin and spent some time in 2002 in Mainland China working on more of the same and have a lot of thoughts and observations on the whole outsourcing thing.
Outsourcing is here to stay, and definitely isn't going anywhere whether or not we like it. That being said, I think the biggest problem I witnessed firsthand is that there is a total lack of knowledge of basic business processes, business practices, and no vertical domain expertise at all. Without this "real world" business experience, the programmers lack the creativity and context to foresee problems and truly understand the business world that their clients are operating in.
There is a very linear development path that overseas programmers follow, and most would dare not suggest alternative development paths. They get the design specifications and go straight down the list. Obviously, this is good in some cases and bad in others, depends.
I think getting young programmers is great, and having the latest, greatest technology can help. But, as we all know first to market, and the best technologies don't always win out, (just ask Apple). I would much rather have someone who has a solid understanding of my business problems and someone who posseses the creativity to solve those problems in new, more effective ways.
People do it because it's cheap, and who doesn't want a great deal. With proper pre-planning, and project management we realized costs savings in the 15% - 30% range. If you just throw a project offshore, sure you can cut your costs in half, but you'll get what you pay for. And again, it is very hard to get offshore programmers with the contextual knowledge of your business. Things work better if you already have the higher level software architectures built and farm out the grunt work.
On a more philosophical level, I think a new, even more powerful post-internet shift is taking place in the way we live and work. The cold hard reality is that the outsourcing trend will continue. I've seen projections that state by 2015 virtually 80% of white collar employment will be eliminated by software and outsourcing. Our educational system is ill-equipped to educate and train people in keeping up with this trend.
Seems clear to me that a larger percentage of us are working with higher degrees of specialization, and more on a project by project basis. Hopefully, some leaders will wake up, deal with the facts and open up a new path. I don't see much choice really.
Just some thoughts,
-jon
> Jay Tillery wrote: > Hello Chris, > >Cool thing about SA is that there are young programmers here, with the knowledge of newer technology in their brains already. Yes, the cost of living is cheaper here by far. The infrastructure here in Brasil is amazing and we are already set up for broadband services. How many American businessmen do you think would risk going to Columbia? I am working on a very strong case that Brasil is the next outsourcing hole for sure. I have been looking for partners to help build a data center here for outsourcing projects. I already have perm residence here, and a resource of developers ready to roll. > >-Jay > >> Chris Schwarz wrote: >> Hi Jay, >> >>I am all for outsourcing to other countries. In fact, I have a business partner who is currently working on setting up a channel to outsource IT work to India. I read an interesting article about outsourcing this week. Apparently South America may be the next big continent for outsourcing. Looks like it's much cheaper than India. The article mentions Columbia, but how are things in Brazil? >> >>Here is the link: >> >>http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/040113/sb200401120920_1.html >> >>Chris >> >>> Jay Tillery wrote: >>> I think many of you may already know that I am currently in Brasil working on a low cost data center for American Small businesses(still haven't found that niche) by an American. I am interested in knowing what many of you think about outsourcing to countries overseas not owned by Americans. In general, does it matter? Do you just wan't the work done cheaper, but turned around quickly and professionally? >>> >>>-Jay >>> >>>P.S. Who is the owner of this board? Interested in hearing her point of view as well. I guess it's Jess. Private Reply to Jon Myers (new win) |
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