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Why India outsourcing is doomed

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Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#71

Post by lucaspiller »

autokad wrote: post #64
curiousDog wrote: post #24

Oh not this stupid argument again. Many problems he mentions aren't specific to India, you'll find them across all developing economies (We had most of the same issues contracting work to a Chinese and Brazilian company). At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. And some companies are clearly okay with said cheap work. There's a reason the IT industry in Hyderabad/B'lore is booming. Want solid contracting wor…

I definitely agree the title of the argument is jumping to conclusions, but the problems are very real from what I have experienced. paying more (to Indian (as in, in India) developers) doesn't alleviate those problems. people have really stretched what xenophobia and racism means anymore. Why should they work for peanuts when their friends are working at google and FB making bank? because peanuts where they are is a…

As I understand, it's more of a cultural thing. I live in a Middle East country where a lot of low to mid-level workers are from India. If you want to get anything done it's full of bureaucracy, things are done to the minimum standard of working (a socket in my apartment came off the wall, the handyman came to fix it and used a bit of brown tape - job done!), and people are always looking for ways to one-up themselves.

A company I'm working for is currently trying to build up a team in India (for lower costs), and all the problems we are facing are those described in the article. Given my experience with how they are in my country, combined with the company most likely paying the minimum, I'm not really surprised.

On the other hand I have a friend in the UK who has a couple of on-site developers from India working for him and he says they are great. Of course, I'm sure not all Indians work the way I have described, but I wonder whether for these guys they have picked up the Western way of working from living there.

(Apologies if I come off as harsh or offensive, I'm not saying the Western way is better than the Indian / Asian way it's just different - which is where these outsourcing issues come from, as people expect outsourced developers to work the same as a local developer)

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#72

Post by droithomme »

I agree with other commenters that OP has conflict of interest since he is an outsourcer as well. He hopes to establish that this other outsourcing destination is not as high quality as his own.

That's an easy argument to attack on both "conflict of interest" and "racism" grounds, and many in this and other threads have made that rebuttal.

It dismisses though the reality that most of what he says in his post is true, as anyone who has actually dealt with this scenario honestly knows.

If outsourcing, there are advantages to having compliant workers who never contradict you. It's very comforting and you can feel good about yourself until the deadline arrives and you receive non-functional junk. But that's OK, you're saving money, just send it back for another round, or ten or twenty, of rework.

Dealing with guys like the OP is much harder. He's Ukrainian. He's much more likely to tell me if what I propose is a stupid idea or I am an idiot. If I was insecure or incompetent, that could really damage my self esteem. On the other hand, he's much more likely to deliver a working product in accordance with what I had in mind on the agreed upon date.

Depending on whether I am some middle manager at a big corporation for which product quality and success is not very important, or if I am the owner of a company that is trying to rework industry, I may find it rational to choose one rather than the other.

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#73

Post by ajinkyakale »

dominotw wrote: post #61
neindanke wrote: post #6

Not sure why the author seems to insinuate that the problems he/she has described are somehow specific to India. We had a disaster when we outsourced a large piece of design work to Denmark. We found out that the outsourcer in Denmark was themselves outsourcing chunks of work to Ukraine. Our bias assuming that an expensive Scandinavian outsourcer would be magically better than a cheaper Asian alternative led us astra…

I don't think he says the problems are specific to India. He is just presenting India as a case study, perhaps because it the most popular outsourcing destination.

Then why the india in the title?

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#74

Post by ajinkyakale »

Not this again! The fact that the article shows only the under developed images (like the over crowded vehicle and the snake charmer) makes me sad. These articles and the tv shows have completely wrong images of india in their mind. You can argue why is it a big deal, but when you see the typecast running in all the articles these days it hurts mostly because it so far from the reality. I have not seen a snake charmer my entire life after staying in the country for 25 years! The problems he mentions might be true I dont have any experience but I bet its common and holds true for the entire outsourcing business.

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#75

Post by neebz »

codingdave wrote: post #13
neebz wrote: post #3

The most important point is of blended rate. Outsourcing industry has a huge conflict of interest with the customer. Customer wants minimum number of high-quality engineers to complete work in the minimum possible time. Outsourcing companies want the opposite. They don't hire high-quality engineers because a) they eat in to their profit margins because of high salaries b) they get things done quickly which reduces th…

I wish I could read the article, but it is asking me to log in, so I am skipping it. But your comments remind me of what I hear for a lot of Americans (and Indian expatriates) who tend to be negative about Indian workers, when often the root cause of their complaints are cultural differences, and the ways that it impacts the work. I have had great relationships with outsourced teams. But I did not get them just from…

That's great to hear.

I certainly don't think the problems are cultural. I believe it's the inherent business model which is not aligned.

You are happy with your outsourced teams but I would love to know how do you compare your outsourced team with your US one? I believe that their are super quality engineers in Asia who can give you US standard of work but you will never get access to those guys as long as you are going through an outsourcing company. In a team of 10, maybe you'll have 1-2.

You may not think so but you can actually afford to hire 10 senior high quality US standard guys in your outsourced teams. And it would still be 20% of your US cost yet your partner company's interest is not in it. They'll always tell you it's hard to hire, market competitive or difficult to retain etc.

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#76

Post by digi_owl »

curiousDog wrote: post #24

Oh not this stupid argument again. Many problems he mentions aren't specific to India, you'll find them across all developing economies (We had most of the same issues contracting work to a Chinese and Brazilian company). At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. And some companies are clearly okay with said cheap work. There's a reason the IT industry in Hyderabad/B'lore is booming. Want solid contracting wor…

Makes one wonder if one could hit on more quality assured work if one shopped somewhere within the states but outside said valley.

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#77

Post by digi_owl »

neindanke wrote: post #6

Not sure why the author seems to insinuate that the problems he/she has described are somehow specific to India. We had a disaster when we outsourced a large piece of design work to Denmark. We found out that the outsourcer in Denmark was themselves outsourcing chunks of work to Ukraine. Our bias assuming that an expensive Scandinavian outsourcer would be magically better than a cheaper Asian alternative led us astra…

Eastern Europe is to the Nordics what Asia is to USA...

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#78

Post by JamesBarney »

kyllo wrote: post #66
JamesBarney wrote: post #62

I worked with one of the top 5's and the biggest issue was the hierarchical culture that seemed to give managers more status and money than coders. I think this meant there wasn't a lot of incentive to become a great coder so people worked very hard to take on management responsibilities and not as hard at becoming great coders. I'd really like to hear from people with more experience if this was just true of this on…

This phenomenon (career advancement = promotion to middle management) is also the case at the client companies, which is part of the reason why outsourcing is tempting to them in the first place. The never ending desire to commoditize their inputs.

At most of the companies I've been in the U.S. the difference in pay between senior coders and middle management was slight to non-existent but if you look at Accenture's Indian salaries associate manager makes 50% more then team lead, and makes almost triple what a senior software engineer makes.

While this phenomenon exists in the U.S. it seems to me it is an order of magnitude smaller then it is in India.

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#79

Post by ryanmarsh »

So far the comments seem to be saying:

Not all Indians

Not all outsourced projects

I would love for someone to step up up and directly address the core argument of this article, that is, Indian outsourcing is doomed.

Indian outsourcing, not outsourcing, not Indians, Indian outsourcing.

After a short 10 years observing, managing, or cleaning up after outsourced developers in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ukraine, India and CONUS (I'm in the U.S.) the data points I have are very consistent.

1. Outsourcing is hard

2. The greater the time zone difference the harder it is

3. The greater the culture difference the harder it is

4. The lower the average skill of available programmers the harder it is

You do the math.

From a U.S. perspective Indian outsourcing cannot possibly continue at its current level without innovation. That simple assertion the author made, IMHO, is both valid and correct.

I can't claim my experience is comprehensive enough to satisfy the apologists here but my God man find me a majority of CTOs, product managers, and senior developers who have an overall positive view of Indian outsourcing.

The last, and most controversial thing I'll say is this: The best Indian developers aren't in India. The great ones are getting visas to Europe, N. America and Australia. Hell there are 50 or so right now on my project that transplanted their families for only a 1 year project. They, and their families want to be in Europe, N. America, Australia.

edit: sigh formatting

Re: Why India outsourcing is doomed

#80

Post by dominotw »

ajinkyakale wrote: post #73
dominotw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he says the problems are specific to India. He is just presenting India as a case study, perhaps because it the most popular outsourcing destination.

Then why the india in the title?

specifically?
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