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Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

economist.com

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Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#21

Post by learc83 »

hogFeast wrote: post #12

This is still very shallow thinking. Every company that views tech as a cost rather than a way to generate revenue will invest in these contracts/offshore centres, and that is the noose round their neck. In most cases, but not all, hiring consultants suggests you don't understand enough about your own business to manage it yourself ( insert image of senior executive trying to work out the Zoom so they can check their…

>Btw, some places are very good for outsourcing (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus)

I've had just as many problems working with outsourcing firms in Russia and Ukraine as I have with Indian firms. And I've had the same problems working for companies that tried to hire very cheap US based developers in house. I think the problem occurs whenever developer cost is your primary metric.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#22

Post by nmstoker »

the-dude wrote: post #4

There is little substance in the article. Biggest point made is that enterprise software is easier to administer and use. I feel they entirely missed the elephant in the room : SaaS.

I certainly feel the article could have made more of their central points, which were mainly anecdotal / common sense.

This is the part I'd like to have seen more proof and analysis around: "the Indian giants have also been unable to keep pace with technological change. Corporate software is becoming easier to use, reducing demand for their services. The lucrative legacy business of running mainframes is evaporating. Helping clients shift to the cloud makes money but not nearly as much."

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#23

Post by baybal2 »

zabil wrote: post #20

Major IT companies in India get a lot of revenue from maintainence projects and there is usually no scope for making major changes or innovating there. The time and material billing for these make it quite attractive from a revenue point vs fixed bid greenfield projects. I don't think that situation will change anytime time soon as along as these companies stick to services.

Yes, one word to say — JAVA.

It's pretty much, the one and only thing that keeps enterprisey software maintainance people occupied.

Thought, the Java is finally on decline on the backend. Android is pulling Java devs from enterprise, and cheaper to use languages displace Java there.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#24

Post by raverbashing »

MattGaiser wrote: post #6

Isn't this also true of IBM? All these consulting firms have an expensive business model which is increasingly no longer useful.

I'm sure IBM and other companies get a non trivial amount of checks with a lot of zeros each year for supporting legacy applications/systems/etc with barely any work involved on their part besides maybe running Make again once in a while.

And to be fair, some companies are not even wrong because rewriting is still more expensive than just paying for maintenance.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#25

Post by patja »

jrumbut wrote: post #8
mjohn wrote: post #5

I recently joined a company where my main task is to modernise a business critical application built and supported by Wipro over ten years ago. Everything is still on .Net 3.0 (first released in 2007), and despite hundreds of pages of documentation the developers seem to have little understanding of what the application actually does for the business. The impression I have is that their business model is geared towar…

The truest saying in software is that the highest value output of a project is an engineering team that understands your business. Past a certain point of size/complexity you can't buy one of those for any price, you have to make it. Outsourcing turns an investment opportunity into an expense.

This rings true for my experience as well. And it also highlights the waste that occurs when a successful team finishes delivering and is immediately dispersed to the four winds, something that happens all too often.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#26

Post by dclusin »

baybal2 wrote: post #23
zabil wrote: post #20

Major IT companies in India get a lot of revenue from maintainence projects and there is usually no scope for making major changes or innovating there. The time and material billing for these make it quite attractive from a revenue point vs fixed bid greenfield projects. I don't think that situation will change anytime time soon as along as these companies stick to services.

Yes, one word to say — JAVA. It's pretty much, the one and only thing that keeps enterprisey software maintainance people occupied. Thought, the Java is finally on decline on the backend. Android is pulling Java devs from enterprise, and cheaper to use languages displace Java there.

Java’s still going to be in use long after we’re both dead.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#27

Post by noble_pleb »

baybal2 wrote: post #23
zabil wrote: post #20

Major IT companies in India get a lot of revenue from maintainence projects and there is usually no scope for making major changes or innovating there. The time and material billing for these make it quite attractive from a revenue point vs fixed bid greenfield projects. I don't think that situation will change anytime time soon as along as these companies stick to services.

Yes, one word to say — JAVA. It's pretty much, the one and only thing that keeps enterprisey software maintainance people occupied. Thought, the Java is finally on decline on the backend. Android is pulling Java devs from enterprise, and cheaper to use languages displace Java there.

Not just Java, there is a lot of old Microsoft tech floating around too. VB6 and old versions of .NET and MSSQL are still common in many enterprises.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#28

Post by DrJokepu »

hogFeast wrote: post #12

This is still very shallow thinking. Every company that views tech as a cost rather than a way to generate revenue will invest in these contracts/offshore centres, and that is the noose round their neck. In most cases, but not all, hiring consultants suggests you don't understand enough about your own business to manage it yourself ( insert image of senior executive trying to work out the Zoom so they can check their…

I had extremely good experiences with opening a subsidiary office in Sofia, Bulgaria (not outsourcing, but legit part of the company.) Code quality went way up compared to what was developed in the US/UK, somewhat less expensive (but not that much, like you said), and most importantly and perhaps also the most surprisingly, the attitude of the young kids working there is way more positive and well-adjusted that what we see when hiring in the US/UK (especially in the UK).

At this point it's not even about the money, it's just that they're more pleasant people to work with.

Re: Indian IT consultancies struggle against technological obsolescence

#30

Post by jen20 »

baybal2 wrote: post #23
zabil wrote: post #20

Major IT companies in India get a lot of revenue from maintainence projects and there is usually no scope for making major changes or innovating there. The time and material billing for these make it quite attractive from a revenue point vs fixed bid greenfield projects. I don't think that situation will change anytime time soon as along as these companies stick to services.

Yes, one word to say — JAVA. It's pretty much, the one and only thing that keeps enterprisey software maintainance people occupied. Thought, the Java is finally on decline on the backend. Android is pulling Java devs from enterprise, and cheaper to use languages displace Java there.

> Thought, the Java is finally on decline on the back

Is there any evidence this is actually the case?

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