I have been working in the IT industry since 1997. At that time it was a sure thing that you were in a good position; you knew you had a skill that which attracted a premium for – and if you were a contractor then you could really go to town on rates … GBP 500 per day was not unheard of.
Today we see many IT related companies shedding their IT resources and bringing in offshore resources as an alternatve. With the ever-expanding web/interconnectedness of things we’ve all talked about has brought the situation where your location is almost irrelivant to what you can do. Therefore Indian, Chinese, LATAM (et al) IT professionals are now picking up the work local resources were used to.
In some ways we have ourselves to blame; we got greedy and demanded more and more. That strategy means eventually someone will say “no” and then the dominoes fall. In 2001 I took an transatlantic flight and attended a 1 day meeting. Today, I would be lucky to get a Hertz car on the current corporate policy.
So what happens next?
Currently we’re facing a tough economic climate and companies are using this opportunity to shed thousands of IT “local” positions and either making those positions redundant through re-organization or using offshore resource to provide a cheaper alternative. In the short term this will provide better return on investment and companies will report that their EBITDA is improved. Long term however is a different story.
Like many things in life, these things go in cycles. Offshore will be the defacto for many companies. These companies will see a slow down of deliveries (the last offshore <> onshore time to complete efforts study we performed showed that offshore effort had to be multiplied by 1.8 to get the same output as onshore), reduction of intuitive capability and intellectual property (IP). In turn their clients will notice the difference and either demand that the price of these deliveries reduce or that there’s more value for service…something that the offshore model can’t support.
I have been working with offshore resources now for 2 straight years. To date I have very few individuals who could offer me creative and intuitive solutions when challenged; in the main it’s a standard to revert to old patterns and fall back to “process” when it challenges are ahead. This in turn causes frustration from the non-outsourced resources who then spend time either proving that thought wrong or are the ones who need to be the creative ones (which i guess is a positive for them as they’re the asset).
Please don’t take this as some xenophobic or racist statement – I believe offshoring has its’ place, but equally deployed on a large scale without thought and strategy it can have a negative effect on an organization. The current company I work for is seeing that it will increase for a good 12-18 months. However at some point the balance will start to tip.
I’ve locked this post now.
Filed under: tech | Tagged: I.T., offshore, technology
Agree that offshore people provide a valuable service – my point being *in the right context* – not to the exclusion of just saving money, cause that’s a short term strategy.
Again – it’s a short term strategy; Clients are affected by the change in many circumstances and so will look else where – what is needed is to make the company lean through efficiencies – moving fast and delivering quality will lead to happy customers who will continue to do business. Many corps still operate on “fat” processes and are over burdened with outdated processes and people who don’t want change. Remove those obstacles and enable people and you get far more that will continue to deliver… revenue up, costs down, fewer staff made redundant… isn’t that better?
In my experience of 4 years of OUTSOURCED resources which tend to be offshore derived, 2 of which have been working with a significant amount of folks, I have found that, in the main, development resources are not creative enough and lack initiative or show a flair for true individualism.
For Testing resources I have found them thorough – this is because with testing, the creative work has already been done and so it’s working through a process.
For operational resources we have been sent so many folks who claim to have certain levels of knowledge, but clearly don’t . Again, lack initiative.
Again I must also state – this is not an offshore bashing post – it’s also discussing how traditional IT resources have made a rod for their own back.
I think we need to start by directing our attention to spammers. Especially those trying to promote casinos, online games, working from home or vitamins. This list is not exhaustive.