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Outsourcing Doesn't Work

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Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#31

Post by jared314 »

jpcx01 wrote: post #30
chanakya wrote: post #22

I've read many articles critical of offshoring to India over the past few years, and they all seem to have the same pattern. The authors all seem to want to describe what's wrong with offshoring, but what they end up describing are great examples of the kind of thinking in American companies which leads to failure. The pattern is almost identical: - It all starts with, out of nowhere, 'pressure' to 'outsource/offshor…

I completely agree with you. I've been on many projects where outsourcing ended up being a terrible idea, but anyone with a brain would be able to see that the process was screwed up from the beginning (on our side). I imagine myself in the shoes of the outsourced developer, and its easy to conclude I would have produced the same crap results given the constraints most managers put on the teams. Code ownership and th…

So, outsourcing doesn't solve your problems, it just shows them to you. Where have I heard that before?

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#32

Post by jtbigwoo »

jeb wrote: post #4

Outsourcing works, else it would not still exist.

> Outsourcing works, else it would not still exist.

Isn't this like saying, "Thousands of satisfied customers can't be wrong?" Thousands of customers can be wrong. Thousands of companies can pay dearly for outsourced services that end up hurting their business.

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#33

Post by jtbigwoo »

chanakya wrote: post #22

I've read many articles critical of offshoring to India over the past few years, and they all seem to have the same pattern. The authors all seem to want to describe what's wrong with offshoring, but what they end up describing are great examples of the kind of thinking in American companies which leads to failure. The pattern is almost identical: - It all starts with, out of nowhere, 'pressure' to 'outsource/offshor…

What you're describing doesn't sound like outsourcing or even offshoring to me. It sounds like expanding the business in new geographic areas.

Successful manufacturing companies would never think of sending off a spec sheet to the cheapest contract manufacturer and then just sitting back and waiting for the first production run. But somehow, companies have no problem sending off a software spec and just sitting back and waiting for a product.

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#34

Post by jpdugan »

gaius wrote: post #15
gte910h wrote: post #10

1> Vast difference between domestic and overseas outsourcing. Domestic outsourcing gets rid of a lot of his beefs. 2> You're not paying the developers to develop software, you're paying them to go away afterwards (so you don't have to keep paying them a salary). The big savings don't come from the hourly rate, but instead the fact they're not employees. You get this same benefit domestically. Disclosure: I run a dome…

No, you're really paying your developers to build domain/business knowledge and familiarity with the codebase. Then when you need a bug fixed or a new feature, it's a snap. You're also paying them so the competition can't hire them. Remember the value of any company engaged in IP is not in the stuff it owns and not even in the stuff it's already done: it's in its ability as an organization to identify and solve new a…

These are all valid points, but I think you're overstating the case a bit. Certainly, IP creation should not be routinely outsourced, but it can be outsourced in limited cases to the benefit of the organization.

I think there's a common misperception that outsourcing firms charge higher rates because their resources are (supposedly) more technically proficient. But, at least at my company, this is rarely what's going on. Most of my clients have excellent technical staffs. Our clients hire us in part, of course, because we are talented technologists, but the larger part, I believe, is because of our ability to acquire domain knowledge rapidly and our ability to retain that knowledge over long stretches of time when we aren't actively involved in the development process. Finding a comparable resource to hire or contract is so onerous that it doesn't make sense when what the company really needs is to achieve a goal now.

In other words, any product development company worth a damn hires as much for business acumen as it does for technical acumen. Otherwise, what would be the point?

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#35

Post by idoh »

I've been the PM on a couple outsourced projects and they both shipped on time, in scope, and made the users happy.

It does add some load to the PM side of things for sure - the project has to be really well documented and it is really important to have good communication channels.

I have noticed that the Indian dev team I worked with was a lot less likely to challenge the design / schedule of a project, or ask questions when they don't understand things. This isn't ideal of course but it is manageable by making sure that the team on both sides communicates well and has trust / good relationships.

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#36

Post by [deleted] »

charlesju wrote: post #7

Outsourcing definitely works. The main problem that I with your company is that you guys have poor managers. A good manager will know how to modularize code and quality assurance in such a way that outsourcing will be a well-oiled checked and balanced machine.

[deleted]

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#37

Post by senthilnayagam »

having a general controversial topic would get lot of discussion

first 3 paragraphs, 3 failure examples.

project size, scale, delivery timeline, expectation, process followed, vendor rating, vendor capability nothing ever is mentioned, this is worse than statistics.

I can make some similar absurd claims

"consulting does not work" , they don't tell you what you did not know, right?

"medicines do not work" we know about placebo effect

all this is absurd, insult to our intelligence

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#39

Post by [deleted] »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #33
chanakya wrote: post #22

I've read many articles critical of offshoring to India over the past few years, and they all seem to have the same pattern. The authors all seem to want to describe what's wrong with offshoring, but what they end up describing are great examples of the kind of thinking in American companies which leads to failure. The pattern is almost identical: - It all starts with, out of nowhere, 'pressure' to 'outsource/offshor…

What you're describing doesn't sound like outsourcing or even offshoring to me. It sounds like expanding the business in new geographic areas. Successful manufacturing companies would never think of sending off a spec sheet to the cheapest contract manufacturer and then just sitting back and waiting for the first production run. But somehow, companies have no problem sending off a software spec and just sitting back…

[deleted]

Re: Outsourcing Doesn't Work

#40

Post by [deleted] »

IgorPartola wrote: post #19
petervandijck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still get crudgy code with TDD.

Yes, but I might not care. If I ask for a function that takes a particular data structure and writes it to a particular file format, as long as it's not in my hot loop, I don't care how badly it's implemented (assuming it works on all my edge cases). On the other hand I might want to make sure it's maintainable or fast enough, in which case I might just write it myself.

[deleted]
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