Tata Consultancy Services

[DodgyAgent]

What is interesting is that some of you have reacted by suggesting that the client is at fault here, which shows more about the attitudes of contractors than it does of clients. OK had it been one or two clients going to "inshoring" and paying vast amounts for barely qualified people who hardly speak any English then fine. You could have reasonably assumed that either backhanders were flying around or that there was some other agenda being pursued.

However this is not just a trickle it is a flood of business that is being put to Indian offshore/inshore companies. Decisions to do this are being made under the scrutiny of some of the leading business people in the land, shareholders, the FSA and needless to say the parasitical brigade of lawyers, consultants and accountants. Yet STILL they are prepared to pay double to poorly skilled Indians than what they pay contractors!!!

I once spoke to the head of operations at a leading Bank when IR35 come out. I suggested that the positive sided of IR35 was that contractors had an opportunity to change their working relationship with the clients. Instead of working purely on time and materials basis they wiould start accepting SLAs and fixed price work. He fell out of his chair laughing.

Most contractors are really good, but what many do not understand is how to relate their skills to the needs of the business. Sometimes all that is needed is a sh**y piece of code, or someone to change the tapes. They dont all want a reproduction of the ceilings of the palace of Versailles.

[tim123]

I once spoke to the head of operations at a leading Bank when IR35 come out. I suggested that the positive sided of IR35 was that contractors had an opportunity to change their working relationship with the clients. Instead of working purely on time and materials basis they wiould start accepting SLAs and fixed price work. He fell out of his chair laughing.

I presume your implication here is that contractors wouldn't be prepared to work this way.

Not the ones that I work with. Over the last 20 years, myself and many of my colleagues have sought clients who will let us do this. We do this not because it brings us more money, but because it would bring us more job satisfaction.

The response has always been "No chance whatsover. You're not big enough for us to have any leverage, if you stuff up".

Most companies consider that "not having to pay if a solution is not delivered" is nowhere near enough compensation for outsourcing a job. They require a company that has *significantly* more to lose than money when they sue the arse off them. The one man band cannot give them this.

tim

[DodgyAgent]

I presume your implication here is that contractors wouldn't be prepared to work this way.

Not the ones that I work with. Over the last 20 years, myself and many of my colleagues have sought clients who will let us do this. We do this not because it brings us more money, but because it would bring us more job satisfaction.

The response has always been "No chance whatsover. You're not big enough for us to have any leverage, if you stuff up".

Most companies consider that "not having to pay if a solution is not delivered" is nowhere near enough compensation for outsourcing a job. They require a company that has *significantly* more to lose than money when they sue the arse off them. The one man band cannot give them this.

tim

Not at all. He laughed after he exclaimed "What! are you suggesting that contractors become professional?", meaning that he did not think that contractors as a whole would change and become business minded.

Many "one man bands" do establish themselves on a proper supply basis to companies. Contractors who do this are in the perfect position to start a proper business. They are already there, they know the software, they understand the business and they have the trust of their boss. Whilst many contractors who do this are OK at getting a few more people to help them on a project they are very poor at developing a business from that first seed of opportunity. So finding another client is the biggest obstacle even within the company that they are already working for.

If contractors could look at a business, or section of business in its entirety, see the problems and then see a solution they would have an opportunity to design and deliver a solution. Too many contractors/people are very good at identifying a problem, but too few are also good at coming up with the
solution and even fewer see these things as opportunities to establish a business.

[Buffoon]

If it is all the fault of contractors then why are permanent staff also being canned in favour of outsourcing and inshoring?

As for relating skills to the needs of business. It is agents who refuse to put any one who doesn’t matches 100% the paper requirements. It is clients that apply the most selective tests. If they just want someone to knock together a bit of dodgy code why insist on the best of the best of the best (“SIR”)?

There is also the control factor. A UK employee / contractor knows that they have a number of rights in the work place. With inshoring staff the balance of terror is in favour of the client. They can dictate the working conditions and compensation with the certain knowledge that it will be accepted or it back to the flies and smell of a shanty town in India for the objectors.

I am so glad that I am out of the game and in proper business on my own.

[threaded]

If it is all the fault of contractors then why are permanent staff also being canned in favour of outsourcing and inshoring?

As for relating skills to the needs of business. It is agents who refuse to put any one who doesn’t matches 100% the paper requirements. It is clients that apply the most selective tests. If they just want someone to knock together a bit of dodgy code why insist on the best of the best of the best (“SIR”)?

There is also the control factor. A UK employee / contractor knows that they have a number of rights in the work place. With inshoring staff the balance of terror is in favour of the client. They can dictate the working conditions and compensation with the certain knowledge that it will be accepted or it back to the flies and smell of a shanty town in India for the objectors.

I am so glad that I am out of the game and in proper business on my own.

Yes, is also the reason H1Bs are so favoured in the US.

[tim123]

Not at all. He laughed after he exclaimed "What! are you suggesting that contractors become professional?", meaning that he did not think that contractors as a whole would change and become business minded.

Sorry Dodgy, but being 'professional' and having business skills are not the same thing.

I believe that I am professional. But I couldn't sell myself out of a paper bag. I require someone to do that part for me, and ISTM that the market doesn't make it easy for someone to specialise in selling individuals as 'professional service' because it is far easier to sell a BoS.

OTOH I know a few people who have good buiness skills. They are the least professional people I know, intending to screw the client for as much as they can get away with and then walk away.

I am quite happy for you to suggest that the contracting fratertity does not have good business skills but to suggest that it is "their fault" and that it something that they should fix individualy is stupid. I am a techy for a reason and if that reason wasn't there I'd already be be doing something else with my life.

tim

[Euro-commuter]

What is interesting is that some of you have reacted by suggesting that the client is at fault here, which shows more about the attitudes of contractors than it does of clients.

Dodgy, you are reacting (again) to what you thought would happen rather than what happened.

"some of you have reacted by suggesting that the client is at fault"? Some of us? Only 2 of us had reacted at all: barely_pointless, and I.

Did we suggest that "the client is at fault here"?

barely_pointless said "It says more about the client than it does about contractors", but I'll leave him or her to say whether that is an accusation of fault against clients.

I said "What does it say about clients? That they don't want to buy (or rent) a body directly, they want to buy a solution........
And that's what it says about contractors too....." trying to analyse the different expectations and reasons for different views (on the part of clients and of contractors) of what contractors/consultants are for.

Then I specifically added "I am unsure whose fault that is in all cases, if indeed it is a fault."

You're accusing some of us (i.e. 2 of us, as if it were a trend) of a reaction that we didn't react.

[Cowboy Bob]

However this is not just a trickle it is a flood of business that is being put to Indian offshore/inshore companies. Decisions to do this are being made under the scrutiny of some of the leading business people in the land, shareholders, the FSA and needless to say the parasitical brigade of lawyers, consultants and accountants. Yet STILL they are prepared to pay double to poorly skilled Indians than what they pay contractors!!!

One word - kickbacks

[shoes]

Another word - incompetence. Ive worked on many client sites, both large and small, and Ive yet to see one that wasn't being run idiotically.

Let's say that as a contractor I do notice a gap in the market for a consultancy firm and I start one up. Who am I going to find to work for my consultancy, knowing as I do that most companies are run very badly? I'll get some cheap indians in, pay them peanuts, and charge a fortune for them. They will be hopeless at the client site, but the client probably won't notice, they are probably selling their consultancy made solution to another badly run firm who won't notice either.

Incompetence makes the world go 'round. Have you never noticed that nothing works properly?

[barely_pointless]

well in my limited experience of 20 odd years, I would have to say that here in OZ (notice I am excluding the UK) the clients generally want it cheaper, faster and want someone else to take responsibility if it goes pear shaped, this fits nicely with the lack of accountability and the blame game.

Quality is not always the key driver.


there is also a comfort factor that comes with a "large" engagement, like a beancounter said to me once after a failed big 5 project "No One ever gets fired for hiring...[insert_big_5_name_here]"

The individual "bodies" or FTE's (full time equivs) capability are often invisible to the people who actually sign the contracts, which makes complaining about them sound all the more like sour grapes.

I stand by what I said, the client is often completely out of touch with it, and has another agenda, one which includes the key deliverable of covering his arse first and ensuring lots of scapegoats are available should anything go wrong, and more so to do it all cheaply.