Quote:
Originally posted by _Q_
Some of the big challenges with IT projects are communication and planning. For example, if you tell me that you want a program to keep track of the widgets that your company makes, then I might have to come back and say, "Well, do you want it to do A or B? Will you need this functionality? What's important to you?" In the real world, you often don't get specs that you can code from, and you have to go back to the person and understand what it is they really need. It sounds like that kind of thing has been a major problem in offshoring. This means that local workers do offer a certain advantage, though not enough to justify the exorbitant salaries they were making in the late 1990s.
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Says who? Is that why the market in areas like India have grown so rapidly?
Some quick quotes from the October 2004 Bloomberg Markets article "India: Beyond Outsourcing."
"Wipro....a global lab on hire that can build the guts of a cell phone, design a semiconductor or run a client's computer system for as little as one-fifth of the price a U.S. company would charge."
Wipro alone is attacking Accenture, Electronic Data Systems, and IBM consultants with "5,000 engineers from Australia to Canada and...190 consultants it gained with two U.S. acquisitions".
"India's computer services companies are growing seven times faster than US firms."
US companies are fighting back by hiring more. Where? In India. IBM added 6,000 employees recently to its 9,000. Accenture has 7,000 and is aiming for 10,000.
And how are the companies faring? Well the gains I have made on my Indian companies have been tremendous. The same US IT companies have been falling (EDS) or unable to make the same gains (Accenture). What do I know though? I only put my money where my mouth is. And I guess the market, essentially one of the most precise indicators of such things, seems to agree.
So it's not just an American company shifting jobs to Indian workers; it's an Indian company that used to sell cooking oil coming in and razing the battlefield because it offers a good product at a lower rate.
-Rudey