A general discussion on Indian consultancies and racism...

[mudskipper]

The thing is that this is not a prof forum - it is general. If you want prof try business or accountancy.

I think it started life in professional.

[eek]

The thing is that this is not a prof forum - it is general. If you want prof try business or accountancy.

This thread (well the original half still is) start in a professional forum then once Bluebell (who admits to being of Indian Descent) started playing the racism card it was moved here.

My take on any statement about racism, sexism... is very, very simple. Those who play it are usually hiding something.

[eek]

have little or no business knowledge or understanding or interest in acquiring it

That is the reality of the situation. The good ones don't have an interest in learning practical business knowledge because they aim to be up to the next job level asap and knowledge is a dangerous thing as it leaves you stuck at the current end client at your current level.

There is one reason why most advertising agencies outsource to eastern europe. 20 years of american culture ensures they know who things should work for Western Media.

[Mich the Tester]

Isn't there a general term for this? RACISM.
Are you telling me that no English ppl have the above qualities? Please! I've seen tons of them. It all boils down to work ethics and personal value system.

And wait... An Indian graduate gets 3months of full time training - with countless tests, assignments. There is screening at every stage. You don't perform to the expected standard, you are out! In some companies, the last 3% of the batch are out- so its relative grading. Now coming to the real job itself, ppl work on avg 10hrs a day. And people less than 3-4 yrs experience usually are not sent onsite. What 'Indian workers not good' song are you singing?

I am an Indian and I find your post very offensive. I am a contractor and I have excellent reputation where ever I worked.

I've worked with Indian individuals who are excellent in their work, and I've worked with Indian individuals who are hopeless. Same goes for Europeans, in about the same measure. So no, I don't have a problem with Indian people in IT. However, having worked with European, American, Singaporean, Japanese, Latin American and Indian IT companies I've found that Indian IT companies tend to be abysmally managed, incapable of delivering according to agreements, indulge in obfuscation behaviour when they should be helping their client, invoice for work in a completely opaque way, send clients faked CVs, faked test results, substandard software. When test results disappoint, the first thing they do is go on the defensive by saying ´works according to spec´ or ´there is no requirement for this´, when they should know that most clients can´t be expected to write good requirements; it´s the responsibility of the IT supplier to help them do that, and secondly this defensive attitude just delays a project more and more instead of working with the client to understand what's needed.

I believe you about your reputation; a lot of Indian IT people are indeed very competent and professional. But the management of Indian IT companies tends to let you down. Some of this can be blamed on American and European businesses who think they can save money by outsourcing to India; they think it's a silver bullet.

I've met directors of European multinationals who are convinced that there are millions of top quality Indian IT people who'll work for 10 dollars a day. It isn't true; the best Indian IT people earn pretty much the same kind of money that they'd earn in Europe, simply because they know their own value. And that's where the racism lies; it's a racist idea to assume that top quality Indian IT people are stupid enough to continue working stupid hours for crappy wages, when they're perfectly capable of getting on google an finding themselves a well paid job somewhere in the world.

In short, no, Indian IT people are individually no more or less competent than anywhere else. But Indian IT companies are so poorly managed that they make their people look stupid. I can't pretend that European or American IT companies are brilliantly managed, but generally they must be doing something right if they're capable of maintaining at least an impression of having some control over what they're doing. And yes, there's racism; it's racist to assume that YOU will always be happy to work your arse off for a pittance while watching ME deliver on time, not early, not late, and then go home at 6 o'clock in an expensive car. Or not go home, but go to a rather nice restaurant for dinner. That's the racist assumption that you're stupid, and I don't share that assumption.

[Arturo Bassick]

Making a generalisation or stereotype, particularly a negative one, based on a persons ethnicity is racist. No doubt.
This case is a little less well defined as it is not talking about the whole of an ethnic group. However the subjects are ALL of the same ethnic group and therefore any generalisation (however well founded) is racist.
What is not racist is statements of facts about individual cases, even where the individual case covers many people. Saying the staff provided by WIPRO have all been substandard is not racist, even though all those staff have come from India. Saying that every Indian worker you have ever met has been substandard is not racist.

Which forces me to the conclusion that most of you are spouting racist boolocks. Now stop it.

[NotAllThere]

This kind of behaviour is encountered fairly regularly in the SAP world.

[Old Greg]

It's all so blach and white isn't it (ho ho?)

I ssuspect there is a degree of racism and a degree of truth derived from people's experience.

If there are indeed lots of crap Indian contractors (and the very few I have worked with - all in the NHS - have been excellent) I doubt it is because of their race / nationality / background. I suspect it is because getting someone in at £200 per day to do a £500 per day contract will mean you get someone rubbish. And the people who tou can get for this tend to be Indians.

So the dimwits see a correlation between being Indian nad beeing poor at work and draw race conclusions. The other dimwits see the race conclusions and deny the correlation.

HTH

[NotAllThere]

I don't think it's the rate. I think it's the entire off-shoring (and then ICT) business model, and I think it has a lot to do with Indian culture.

[Arturo Bassick]

If there are indeed lots of crap Indian contractors (and the very few I have worked with - all in the NHS - have been excellent) I doubt it is because of their race / nationality / background. I suspect it is because getting someone in at £200 per day to do a £500 per day contract will mean you get someone rubbish. And the people who tou can get for this tend to be Indians.

This is the crux of the matter. The model has always been the same. A large consultancy wins a contract. They want to make as much from it as possible. They end up loading the desks with cheap guys who all have access to a fairly solid engineering team somewhere. The result is what people are attributing to being Indian and that is why it is racism.
I remember the days before the Indian head lease companies and we had the same issues. EDS and the others would send new graduates and unqualified juniors who they thought could blag the gig.

[Mich the Tester]

This kind of behaviour is encountered fairly regularly in the SAP world.

It started at the '2.8 years experience' and ended up as it went on.

Again this comes back to poor management; piss poor managers who think they can carry on getting away with this. Of course, European and American IT companies have incompetent staff as well; they just tend not to send them to clients, unlike the Indian IT companies who'll send anyone with a pulse and an incomprehensible accent. That's perhaps my biggest bugbear; if you're going to send someone to work with Europeans, or put someone on the phone working with me, please make sure he can speak comprehensible English. I can usually work around somebody's incompetence and even help him if I can understand what he's saying. But sometimes I just have to hang up the phone because I don't understand a word of what's being said.

Indian IT companies; send your people on basic business communication courses so we can understand a little bit of what they're saying!

Again; piss poor management to not understand that you need good communicators in an international working environment.