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

[KaiserWilly]

The worst about Indian contractors it's when they eat at the office. The smell of curry is sometimes unbearable.

Don't get me wrong. I love Indian food, but not on a Monday at lunch time.

[tractor]

Best ask Vince. He seems to think that they're ESSENTIAL.

FTFY

[The Spartan]

Of course, the real answer is "no one is better than us". Why not be proud of ourselves for once?

This is a superb point and I agree, I would say we have some of the best in the world sure there are some contractors who give REAL contractors a bad name but it's the same for other countries. The fact is these so called consultants are just cheap labour and more than likely in one way or another it will back fire whether something goes wrong or it takes longer to achieve the end goal.

[escapeUK]

Of course, the real answer is "no one is better than us". Why not be proud of ourselves for once?

[SupremeSpod]

No they're not better than UK IT staff on average although in a big group of them as someone pointed out in this thread or another there is always a very bright one that stands out.

But you still can barely understand him.

Just nod your head and keep repeating "No".

[sbakoola]

No they're not better than UK IT staff on average although in a big group of them as someone pointed out in this thread or another there is always a very bright one that stands out.

But you still can barely understand him.

[escapeUK]

Are they worse?

No.

It would appear to me that you said no, and then listed all the reasons and your experience of why they were indeed worse.

[alluvial]

Has anyone got an answer to this one? Since when has the sub continent been part of the EU?

Best ask Vince. He seems to think that they're needed.

[Sausage Surprise]

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

Has anyone got an answer to this one? Since when has the sub continent been part of the EU?

[IR35FanClub]

It becomes a problem when IT consultancies in India hire anybody with a degree very cheaply and then dump them into a project even when they have no real world experience. Some companies in India have 100K plus employees. Even Microsoft does not have so much and it is considered one of the biggest software company. Quantity rather than quality is the buzzword there and when they dump 10 fresh graduates on to a project instead of hiring one contractor in UK because it was much cheaper it now becomes a problem.

Are indians better then UK contractors?

No. But they are cheaper.
Getting the work completed is slower due to language and timezone difficulties.

Are they worse?

No.
They can code, but often don't understand the requirements or have knowledge of local feature requirements - like valid postcode formats.

Id' worked on several projects with a mix of local uk staff, onshored, and off shored.

I'd say over all the best mix was a local UK based requirements and test teams with UK based architecture team and dev outsourced to Mumbai.
The code used to come back crap - but between the test and requirements team it would go back for fixes and eventually get there. It was no worse than another project where dev was split between UK /USA.

I had a few Indian collegaues whilst working (as a permie) at HMRC once, could hardly understand some of them to the point we said to the skills leads, look, you've got to stop these people getting here if they can't make themselves understood. We also found there was a culuture in india of not questioning requirements - I think over there, if you ask questions you get sacked for insubordination or something. I'd say the ratio was about 50% were as good as UK staff - fluent and technically competent, 25% were lazy & workshy and took well to the UK bob culture of sickdays and going out on the piss and turning up late, and 25% were incomprehensible and would go off and do some work - but the wrong work. In fact out of the 8 on my team I'd go looking for 2 of them on LinkedIn if I had a resorcing requirement. But two of them I'd write to the UKBA and say they shouldn't have work visas and they don't pass the english speaking requirement. The other 4, well... it's up to them to stay in employment.

[fullyautomatix]

Its ridiculous to think that the flaws that people encounter with out sourced people never happen with natives, I have worked with a lot of locals who have an air complacency which in my opinion is just as bad as the outsourced people who are not competent. The only problem is when its an out sourced person we are complaining about we are much more vocal.

Bobs are not perfect, but there are some good ones out there!

It becomes a problem when IT consultancies in India hire anybody with a degree very cheaply and then dump them into a project even when they have no real world experience. Some companies in India have 100K plus employees. Even Microsoft does not have so much and it is considered one of the biggest software company. Quantity rather than quality is the buzzword there and when they dump 10 fresh graduates on to a project instead of hiring one contractor in UK because it was much cheaper it now becomes a problem.

[cojak]

And not necessarily for all of us. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is not to turn back the waves but to surf them.

I am, I just worry that I'll fall off the wave and not be able to get back on.

[mos]

Well yeah ... some younger people grew up with Bobs ... so they do not know any better .... the key to success is to set your expectations low. I guess people can get used to anything.

[Ignis Fatuus]

I'm working with a very competent outsourcing company based in Hydrabad. My peer over there deals with developers over there. I deal with him and customer management in the US.

Things will change guys, they always do. I may even get rolled over if I can't adapt fast enough. But I can see strengths in both UK and Indian contractors (for me time zones are one massive positive benefit - I spend half a day in India and half a day in the US), business will always need some face-to-face reassurance and that's where I come in.

There will be contracting work in UK IT for a long time to come, just not the type of IT work that we are doing now.

And not necessarily for all of us. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is not to turn back the waves but to surf them.

[SueEllen]

Its ridiculous to think that the flaws that people encounter with out sourced people never happen with natives, I have worked with a lot of locals who have an air complacency which in my opinion is just as bad as the outsourced people who are not competent. The only problem is when its an out sourced person we are complaining about we are much more vocal.

You can get rid of natives much more easily as they are local so you can meet them face-to-face.

There as outsourced off-shore team managers apply some obfuscation to ensure it's difficult for you to get rid of them.