A general discussion on Indian consultancies and racism...

[suityou01]

That tends to correlate quite strongly with being crap at managing things in house. When this is constantly over budget and failing they decide outsourcing is going to solve the problem rather than realising that the problem is their crappy management.

WDS+1000000000000000

You don't outsource a problem.

[cojak]

Isn't it a case of outsource the work and you outsource your underling's problems and job.

Outsource the problem and you are outsourcing your own problems and your job.

No, it's simply the case that the out-sourced contract costs a hell of a lot more and you find the problem doesn't go away.

As doodab says, 99.99% of the time the problem is their own crappy management, which trickles down to crap vendor management.

[craig1]

I took a sub-contracting role in a consultancy exercise in 2009 where we investigated in-sourcing a formerly outsourced IT department, I was asked to look at insourcing the PMO and PMs. The company had outsourced to "save money", expecting to save 40%-50% per year. What really happened was that their base costs went down quite impressively but every single change request to IT had a cost involved, be it setting up a new email distribution list or the "can you look at my laptop, it's a bit slow" request. They were paying 120% of their previous IT budget, had none of the responsiveness of an in-house department and masses of extra bureaucracy and form-filling.

The in-sourcing fell through when the outsourcing company pointed to a part of the deal where the company had sold them their entire IT estate (printers, servers, licenses, the lot) and they weren't minded to sell them back at the same price. (Cue the slow hand-clap for the C-level executives who authorised that and took the bonuses for the extra unexpected income)

I'm at the point now where I won't take a contract if I have to deal with certain outsourcing companies. I'd be surprised if I had to name them.

[doodab]

The funniest one I have personally seen was a fairly well known organisation who outsourced their existing IT departments and not only went with the cheapest option but split it between two providers who each wanted the whole deal. The end result was months of gridlock as long standing colleagues on different teams were no longer allowed to speak directly to each other without management approval. I walked into this under the umbrella of one of the outsourcers and left (my choice) after three months, at which point I was still waiting for the JDK I had requested on day 1 to be installed by desktop support, who were on the "other side".

[Mich the Tester]

The funniest one I have personally seen was a fairly well known organisation who outsourced their existing IT departments and not only went with the cheapest option but split it between two providers who each wanted the whole deal. The end result was months of gridlock as long standing colleagues on different teams were no longer allowed to speak directly to each other without management approval. I walked into this under the umbrella of one of the outsourcers and left (my choice) after three months, at which point I was still waiting for the JDK I had requested on day 1 to be installed by desktop support, who were on the "other side".

I saw something like that at the Dutch social security office. DBs and OS run by IBM, apps built and run by Crap Gemini and network run by Roccade, all on the cheapest possible contracts wth lowest possible service levels. Brilliant. It took 6 weeks to get an oracle configuration file edited that I could have done on my own in two minutes if I'dbeen allowed to, during which we couldn't test so the PM told the test team to go and sit in another room and piss about on the internet all day, fully invoicable, waiting for a chance to progress). This is when I discovered CUK General.

Then when we got the go ahead to test none of us knew how to start the software. So I cheerfully phoned a Mr Singh at Crap Gemini in Bangalore, asking him to tell us how to start the software his team had delivered. His answer; 'there is no requirement for user manual; please to be issuing change request'.

Still, it made me some money.

[ChimpMaster]

I wonder if anyone else from India/China/<wherever offshore> is reading this, apart from our resident Bluedope?

It would be great to get their view, and how they justify their actions.

[Mich the Tester]

I wonder if anyone else from India/China/<wherever offshore> is reading this, apart from our resident Bluedope?

It would be great to get their view, and how they justify their actions.

This is not in requirements; please to be issuing change request.

[Andy2]

I am an indian and i will never touch an indian IT company with a bargepole. The reason being there is too much office politics, backstabbing, low pay, long working hours, horrible bosses who think they own you. The list goes on and on.
Lots of people like me work in this country not only for better money but also good work environment.

[NotAllThere]

The funniest one I have personally seen was a fairly well known organisation who outsourced their existing IT departments and not only went with the cheapest option but split it between two providers who each wanted the whole deal. The end result was months of gridlock as long standing colleagues on different teams were no longer allowed to speak directly to each other without management approval. I walked into this under the umbrella of one of the outsourcers and left (my choice) after three months, at which point I was still waiting for the JDK I had requested on day 1 to be installed by desktop support, who were on the "other side".

I know a multinational that did that. As soon as you had a problem, it was always the other vendor's responsibility. It was company policy that dissing the "partners" wasn't permitted. A new manager went in, and wanted to know how many dumps on the production system - he wasn't allowed to look himself. "Oh not many". "How many?!". "Oh, not many". Eventually he got access and found there were close to 1000 dumps per day, which explains the endusers' complaints. The normal number of dumps in a system of that size would be maybe 100 on a bad day?

Insane.

[doodab]

Eventually he got access and found there were close to 1000 dumps per day, which explains the endusers' complaints. The normal number of dumps in a system of that size would be maybe 100 on a bad day?

Toilets are one thing you should never outsource.