Are Indian IT Consultants better than UK Contractors? The Voting poll says YES

[mos]

GUEST COMMENT: I

[SueEllen]

The comments say nothing of the sort.

The comments say the article is pointless.

If the writer gave examples of how Indian outsourcing had gone wrong and cost more than using a EU resource in the first place then there would be a point to writing the article.

[mos]

Well...that is written by a Sunday reader, clearly techie ... not by a professional writer or academic.

Personally I can see a few leading comments which criticize the topic itself and call for censorship.

Frankly - I have not yet seen honest article in the wider press outlining pros and cons of outsourcing. Much less well constructed and well researched one. This link demonstrates methods in which such voices are being squished.

[SueEllen]

Well...that is written by a Sunday reader, clearly techie ... not by a professional writer or academic.

You don't need to be professional writer or academic to know that if you are going to write such an article you need to back it up with examples.

It's called reading broadsheet papers and journals, following the style some of their writers use.

Personally I can see a few leading comments which criticize the topic itself and call for censorship.

I don't see that. I see the comments pointing out that the article was a waste of space due to poorly constructed arguments.

Examples were needed to show that using outsourced staff costs the business money. The examples could either be references to other stories in the media in the past 2 years or personal anecdotes.

Frankly - I have not yet seen honest article in the wider press outlining pros and cons of outsourcing. Much less well constructed and well researched one. This link demonstrates methods in which such voices are being squished.

I've seen examples in quite a few broad sheet newspapers and some journals. This is due to the banking disasters that effected normal people this summer.

The articles concentrated on the business knowledge that has been lost by outsourcing, which lead to the disasters and cost more money.

I can give a few of the top of my head:
1. Sexism - I know of two cases where male Indian developers refused to speak to or follow the requests of British female managers. If your team has some female managers and the male outsourcing staff refuse to engage with them this will cost the business money in delays to the project.
2. Failure to instigate proper test procedures e.g. running tests on production environments. Luckily in the cases where I know this has happened they have been caught before they have done any damage.
3. Failure to inform the client in sufficient time that there will be a delivery delay. (Though I know UK companies who do this.)
4. Not understanding instructions or requests, and not asking for clarification leading to delivery of the wrong thing.
5. Not understanding how a particular technology works that is incorporated into the system, and removing it without telling people therefore breaking applications and systems.

[mos]

Interesting examples especially the first one - I believe that the author put all that under the umbrella of "shocking low levels of skill and competence" and did not go into details.

[SueEllen]

Interesting examples especially the first one - I believe that the author put all that under the umbrella of "shocking low levels of skill and competence" and did not go into details.

Things like that don't translate well to people not in the industry.

You need to spell it out clearly by using stories to illustrate this.

Have a google for articles in the Guardian, Telegraph and Independent about the Natwest, RBS and Ulster bank mess this summer for examples.

[Old Hack]

Got to add face to the equation too.

I had an Indian Manager at IBM who was bad, I mean properly bad (and had a wooden leg, but I digress). He could never accept he was wrong, in any capacity. On one occassion, he altered one of my emails to him, complaining about something he had done wrong, which had materially affected a delivery date. He then sent adjusted email out to me, cc'ing about every manager IBM had in the UK thanking me for admitting to making the mistake. To say I went a bit postal would be underestimating it, and I ended up sending an email calling him a deceitful liar, explaining what he had done, with the original mail attached (****wit must have thought I'd deleted it or not saved it) and said if he didn't apologise, I'd walk.

He was moved on.

Also worked with another Indian under my charge, who would ignore every instruction I gave him, as he disagreed with it. No matter how many times I would tell him. He was eventually fired, as even my manager tired of hearing him explain again to me why he'd done it.

I have only ever had one good experience of working with an indian, with regards to his skill set and understanding of what we needed to do, or more particularly he needed to do, the rest have been tulipe.

[DodgyAgent]

I have made a point that asks what on earth are Indian software consultants doing here in the first place?

[MarillionFan]

I have made a point that asks what on earth are Indian software consultants doing here in the first place?

Have you met Suity?

[original PM]

Interesting - I would be very interested to hear or get some links to some hard evidence re the pitfalls of offshoring.

Current company I am with are thinking about doing this - I am set against mainly becuase my perception is it does not work..

Need some data to back my perception up - anyone got any ideas?