Offshore Outsourcing Threatens Offshore Outsourcing 859
theodp writes "India offshore tech support companies may soon face job losses as U.S. companies such as IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and PeopleSoft explore countries with even cheaper sources of technical labor, including Romania, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Concerned that outsourcing might be outsourced from India in the near future, a Bangalore call center owner said 'It's hard to know where it will all end. Is there a country where people will work for free?'" There's a Newsforge story about the same subject.
Offshore outsourcing troubled? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh well. I can always fall back on that SCOX stock.....oh wait.....
Why are you complaining (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Obvious Strikes Again! (Score:5, Funny)
Now, when they start outsourcing management...that's when I'll be happy.
I told you so... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
"*s" don't do shit, PEOPLE do shit (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, there is a real difference here.
Re:You are a dumbass. (Score:3, Interesting)
But what you don't realize is there has been a hundred year effort since the advent of public schools to train free humans to be part of an organization rather than think for themselves.
So the world was filled with clones of Plato and Aristotle, filling the world with enlightened thoughts. But tell me, if the world was filled with altruist
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Funny)
I am Stephens sense of moral outrage.
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
But that brings up yet another point - don't point fingers at corporations about how they have no loyalty to the US workforce, and then drive home in your fsckin' Honda or Toyota.
Sor
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Honda builds their boxy Element SUV in Ohio. [wsjclassroomedition.com]
Oddessey Minivans come from Lincoln, AL [dtcseusa.org]
On the other hand, my 1995 Pontiac Firebird is from Quebec and my wife's 2002 Chrysler PT Cruiser is from Mexico.
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus, you have an entity that is expected to act in a commpletely amoral manner AND shields it's members from the adverse consequences of this amorality.
It should be no surprise to anyone that a corporation will tend towards evil.
It's expected too and it's individual contributors are shie
The people are all that matters (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like some people dont like big government, some dont like big corperations, and its for the same reasons. You dont want all the power to be in one persons hands.
If you want people to stop begging the USA for money perhaps we should help them start their own businesses in their own countries instead of forcing our businesses into their countries, I dont know any arabs who asked for Mc Donalds to expand there, in fact it pisses them off.
Re:I told you so... (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, if anyone actually said business is about saving the world, then you were stupid for believing them. Of course its about making corporations rich! And let's not obfuscate things, it's about making individuals rich, stockholders specifically. Which is awesome! That means that they were able to present someone with a better alternative use for their dollars than anyone else at a moment in time.
Anyway, the whole free trade thing...I live in Texas. I'm tremendously concerned about: <MASSIVE SMARM>
Come to think of it, I'm a programmer living in Dallas. I'm very concerned about all of the IT jobs that have gone to Austin and Houston. Perhaps I'll petition my local government to restrict companies from farming out jobs to them.</MASSIVE SMARM>
Here's the point: I pursue those restrictive policies, and so Austin does too. Or Florida, or whatever. Of course, Florida wouldn't care about the orange grove jobs they'd lose to Texas, so they'd do something like Texas-produced steel, or something we specialize at, just like Chicago specializes (duh) in Chicago tourism.
To an economist, this is a real head shaker. This whole sequence I'm talking about is called reciprocity [freetrade.org]. It's a solved problem in game theory. The only people who argue about it are people who haven't read and understand the solution, i.e., 90% of the whole world, unfortuately.
Now that I've kind of dropped a nuke on this whole argument, I'm going to pull back a bit. There is such a thing as hidden costs in free trade. I obviously understand fundamentally that free trade is a Pareto optimal [gametheory.net] solution for nations, and yet, I don't think we should trade with China under certain circumstances. Why? Because the cost of goods carries a moral cost borne in production not represented by the price. If I buy a shirt from China, I'm not entirely sure it wasn't produced by PoliticalPrisonCo (motto: where products are made by people who think like Americans!) I'm open to the idea that that factor might exist elsewhere. I don't, however, see that factor in dealing with India.
Re:I told you so... (Score:5, Insightful)
This can be clearly seen in the French governments illegal blockades on British beef. Years after they were taken to court and found to be blocking imports for no valid reason, they are still doing it, because otherwise their rural farming communities would go bankrupt (and agriculture is a powerful voter influence in France).
The same is true of steel import tariffs imposed by Bush.
So, we can see that fundamentally the concept of free trade is broken - like most of classical economics, it doesn not work in the real world, and to pretend it does is to deny reality.
Most "real" economists have realised that free trade is not something that should be preached, because despite best intentions it has simply become an abused idea. "Free trade" in practice meant the ability for the US to freely export its goods, but not the other way around (and Europe is just as bad in many respects). This has led to crippled economies in the third world.
So, to say it's a "solved problem in game theory" is correct - it's a solved problem in theory only. In practice, it's not a solved problem and people are looking at alternative economic constructs to help increase wealth and distribute it more fairly (see the work of Lietaer and Gesell for some examples).
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh, Slashdot. The home of the irrelevant truth. I'm not arguing that countries don't engage in trade restrictions, I'm arguing that according to game theory those decisions are contra bono.
Saying that the concept of free trade is "broken" because it's not always practiced is like saying that the idea of health is "broken" because people smoke. I don't "deny reality" to say that it is bad to smoke just because people do smoke.
Next item, crippled third w
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. The trickle-down effect doesn't work, the rich must be taxed. Only celebrities spend their millions on job-creating trickledown hobbies. Most rich businessmen who are assumed to partake in trickled
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, if anyone actually said business is about saving the world, then you were stupid for believing them.
That's EXACTLY what was said when NAFTA was found out in 1994 before the Clinton administration rammed it through Congress. It was marketed as being beneficial for Mexicans and Americans. It was pushed as a way of exporting capitalism and American values to Mexico. So far, Mexico has been devastated, and so have the Americans who have relied on those "bad" jobs.
Of course its
Clarification (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, we do trade for imports,....
Unilateral Free Trade
This is a joke, the aim of our corporate government is not to get imports into the US, but to get our corporations into their markets, which is why they only trade with countries that trade with us.
Ok, it seems like the two quotes are contradicting each other. By "we" in the first statement, I mean the people of the US. In the second statement, I am referring to the corporate government, whose motives are different, IMO. There are also two kinds of imports, which I didn't necessarly make clear. There are intra-corporate imports, which is what corporations want, and their are imports that come from foreign companies which is what the rest of us Americans should desire. The reason we want the latter, is because foreign companies will typically return more of the profits to that country, which will mean higher wages for countries we trade with, which means more consumption by that country and more money flowing back into the American middle class. Intra-corporate imports means lower wages, and the profits get returned to that company and it's investors, who will simply hoard that money.
From the poor countries to the poorer countries (Score:3, Insightful)
I *personally* saw a group of Romanian engineers designing car parts for an American company. They were getting paid $400-$500 per month. You might say it's deplorable to do that. What if I told you that the average Romanian income was $100-$150 per month at the time? All of a sudden it's not so bad.
The point is that they are not
Re:I told you so... (Score:5, Insightful)
One would think that more than two centuries after The Wealth of Nations was published this sort of dark, superstitious nonsense would have been extinguished by the light of reason. Sadly such is not the case.
The beauty of a market is, provided that fraud is not allowed, the greed of all paradoxically leads to the betterment of all. Yes, the corporation wishes to spend less, and so goes with a cheaper supplier of the same good. Well, guess what--that's better. If B can produce the same as A for less, then it is a waste of one's money to use A; it's also a waste of A's time. Going with the cheaper supplier rewards those who do more with less; it is economical.
You know this, I'm certain. Who does not shop for the best prices on groceries? Why is it bad for an employer to shop for the best prices on labour? Of course it's not.
There is the law of comparative advantage to keep in mind as well. If A is better at X and B is better at Y, then it is best for A to devote all his time to X and B to devote all his time to Y; this ends up yielding far more of both X and Y than otherwise. If India is better at call-centre staffing at the US is better at R & D or at finance, then it is best for India to focus on call centres and the US to focus on R & D or finance. This yields more call centres (a good thing) and more research or financing (also a good thing).
The message in return being sent to Americans isn't,"Thanks for helping us get to where we are.", but instead was, "Other countries are out-competing us, you better start working more hours." Of course, what they don't state explicitly, is that you are simply competing with another branch of your employer in a different country.
Hey, you have no right to a living. Why should anyone pay you more to work less? It's insane, like buying lettuce for $50/head. That's what competition is about. It's rough, but that's Real Life.
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Capitalism is not constant. The capitalist economy we have today bears little resemblance to the economic context in which Smith wrote The Wealth of Nation.
The beauty of a market is, provided that fraud is not allowed, the greed of all paradoxically leads to the betterment of all.
Most of the re
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to disallow more than fraud. You have to stop companies from buying laws that prop up their business model or otherwise aid them.
And while "the greed of all" may lead to the lowest prices in a perfect market, this may not be "the betterment of all".
Re:I told you so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you like the fact that your car gets 26 miles per gallon? Thank the Japanese for figuring out how to make fuel-efficient cars and hurting the American auto companies until they too learned how to adapt.
Like your Sony audio equipment? Like the fact that it's not twice as expensive? Again, thank Japan for finding out how to make stuff cheap.
How about your computer? Isn't it great that RAM costs less than $1 per 100 megs? Remember when 16 megs of RAM cost about $300?
Price? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Price? (Score:2)
Re:Price? (Score:5, Interesting)
If a company can churn out the crappiest possible software at the cheapest possible price in the least amount of time, and then have their marketing department convince Joe CEO that their software is the "LEADING!!", "BEST-OF-BREED!!", "INNOVATIVE!!" solution... *shrugs*
Will someone please illegalize marketing? kthxbye.
Re:Price? (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, check out this other article [wired.com], linked from the above one.
Obviously not all companies use these kinds of practices to simulate Americanness in their tech support people; some companies make no effort to disguise their people as being people someplace other than who and where they are. But apparently at least some companies do this, and apparently at least some of their US customers are indeed fooled by it.
Re:Price? (Score:3, Funny)
"What do you say that we take a relaxed attitude towards work and watch the baseball game? The 'NYE' Mets are my favourite squadron."
A country where people will work for free? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A country where people will work for free? (Score:5, Funny)
IS this what inspires terrorism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IS this what inspires terrorism? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Arabs didn't even know it was there until the U.S. (Saudi Arabia & Kuwait) and Britain (Iran & Iraq) showed them it was there. In addition, even if they knew it was there, they had no technology to get at it. The first oil drill was invented by Edwin L. Drake, an American.
Now assume the Arabs knew the oil was there (they didn't) and had the ability to extract it (they didn't), who would they have sold it to?
Other reasons... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the countries named have an actual infrastructure. EG I doubt Romania, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic have electricity problems.
Many of the Eastern European countries are not that far away from the Western markets, with some actually joining the European Union.
All in all it just makes for simpler business....
Funny though... (in an ironic sense)
I was in Romania last year... (Score:3, Informative)
* If you lose your job in Romania, the goverment pays you around $150/month in unemployment, effectively setting a minimum wage.
* The average salary is about $200/month - but that is the average, skilled and non-skilled.
* The average skilled salary is about $50-$100 higher, depending on discipline. Example: an insurance actuary, a person who computes premiums, gets about $300/month. That same job in the US would get about $60k, minimum, and requires advanced mathematics degrees.
* Many Romani
Free software (Score:2)
What percentage of the contributions made to the OSS community are effectively made "for free"? While I approve wholeheartedly of the concept of open access to the source code, and the idea that once I've bought something, I can do what I like with it, the fact that the industry moves more towards no cost software makes me wonder what the job prospects are going to be in the future. Is there a better model of providing the freedom of source code while no
Re:Free software (Score:3, Interesting)
500 clients at $80 a pop for the os = $40,000
500 clients at $300 for some applications $150,000
Every 3 years per major release of windows.
Or?
Pay one human who's part of a open source project who fixes bugs and submits fixes @ $63,333 yearly, only diffrence is, you get them first.
Any company with 500 machines or more is going to have some form of help desk or software support contact. You could spend your money and actually buy a comercial pr
Guess this means. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
India offshore tech support companies may soon face job losses as U.S. companies such as IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and PeopleSoft explore countries with even cheaper sources of technical labor, including Romania, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. American employees hopefully won't lose any more jobs than they have already; but it kinda sucks for the Indian employees who are going to be out of work now.
The biggest problem with a global economy is that it caters to the lowest common denominator. The second biggest problem is, you more often than not get what you pay for. I have to wonder if American IT companies are even concerned with the quality of their technical support anymore?
Re:Guess this means. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe this will lead to an explosion of Indian blogging.
Re:Guess this means. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Or put another way, one of the great things about the global economy is that jobs can migrate to those that want them most. This is an interesting phenomenon to see, really - after decades of IT/IS endeavors increasing efficiency and achieving headcount reductions across a variety of fields, American IS professionals are now facing the same pressures themselves (myself included). While the recent currency weakening might slow the tide, this appears to be a permanent shift.
For those who wish to remain in IS, the high ground appears to be in the analyst realm, or heading towards smaller companies that haven't achieved the scale whereby outsourcing makes sense...
Or, to put it another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
but what's your solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
But you claim this is justified?
Re:but what's your solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't just my solution, it's the solution pro
Re:Or, to put it another way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Labor of some semi-trained person answering a telephone call from an ignoramus who can't open the box his new cable modem came in is not the same thing as the labor of a skilled programmer with knowledge of a technical domain. The supply of one is ample in India and the Philippines, while the other is not. Lumping these together as "labor" misses the whole point.
If
Re:Guess this means. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
What worries ME is that it's not just software development firms that are outsourcing -- it's everyone. Banks, manufacturing firms, you name it. So
Stay with the times (Score:3, Interesting)
Kill or be killed. Always has been and always will be.
You can't tell the RIAA to change its business model without by being prepared to do so yourself. Be flexible and keep with the times.
__
Cheap website reseller hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au] Dragon Action Figures [mibglobal.com.au]
Re:Stay with the times (Score:4, Insightful)
"Kill or be killed" is not an enlightened guiding philosophy. It is not the principle upon which the United States or any other modern democracy was founded. It's unfortunate so much cynicism exists that this philosophy can become so widespread. It only leads to economic uncertainty, fear, and a life little better than living in a cave wondering how you are going to catch your next saber-toothed tiger.
Aspiring to be a human is not a right, it's a responsibility.
Economic Darwinism (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps.. (Score:4, Insightful)
is cheaper the real answer? (Score:5, Insightful)
this kind of thing haunts most developers - and, every company out there who needs to get something done is always seeking for the smaller cost/quick solution for all their projects. its also become common that a lot of developers are lowering their rates just to get work - its not looking good at all..
meanwhile, i perform consulting services - and, i simply refuse to budge from my standard rate for employment. they pay a little more - but, they will get what they pay for. i have had many clients do development in india, then, come to me - and, for a little bit more they get the product faster, of higher quality - and, are very satisfied.
the sooner these companies realize cheap labour has its down-falls, the better of they will be.
Re:is cheaper the real answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Same is true with regular white colar employee's. Time magazine did an article last month about the shrinking pay check. Basically in the 1990's employee's as well as IT were both viewed as investments. Today they are viewed as worthless commidites that eat up costs.
The problem is many IT managers may agree with you but the CEO is the one saying $300 a month for a programer i
Re:is cheaper the real answer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Software development is not some special industry that is exempt from the laws of macroeconomics. If you don't have some competitive advantage over the next guy or the next country, then, guess what, you're going to have a hard time getting work. I hear that Buggy Whip manufacturing is an industry that's about to boom; maybe it would be a good time for a career switch.
meanwhile, i perform consulting services - and, i simply refuse to budge from my standard rate for employment. they pay a little more - but, they will get what they pay for. i have had many clients do development in india, then, come to me - and, for a little bit more they get the product faster, of higher quality - and, are very satisfied.
Well there you go. As long as your salary is justified by your productivity, then you're in good shape. Cheaper is not always better.
I suppose there are activist types who think that the development of the third world is morally wrong--that they should be dirt poor forever. That's what's happening here. The high-tech industry in India is becoming sufficiently developed that it is starting to demand higher wages. For companies seeking the lowest possible price, they may begin to find it elsewhere, until 'elsewhere' becomes sufficiently developed also. But, there are more factors to consider than just price.
Technical support dumbness... (Score:5, Interesting)
Farhat Gupta, owner of several Bangalore call centers, said that little attention is paid to technical training, as "all the answers are always on the computer screen in front of the workers. We exist for people who do not want to use the Internet themselves to find their own answers."
The only time I ever call technical support is when checking the manual and web doesn't get me the answer. If the person on the other end of the line has no more information available to them, what's the point?
Re:Technical support dumbness... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the call center full of untrained people in India with computer screens guiding them? They're fine for about 99% of the clueless users out there who don't realize that the answer is in the documentation.
Not just the almighty $ (Score:2)
Cycle of Poverty (Score:5, Interesting)
Take for example, the automobile industry. In the early 1980's, the US auto industry had some of the highest wages/benefits for auto manufacturers in the world. Alot of those jobs went overseas to Japan/Korea who (at the time) had lower wages (and better quality). This depressed US wages. Now, the reverse is true. Both German and Japanese automakers see that US wages are lower and have located plants here.
So goes it with IT. US coders were first to the trough and wages went up. Then the multinats moved to India who trained their people well and had low wages. Indian coder's rates go up and now the multinats are headed for Eastern Europe. As tech wages get lower in the US and we refocus on quality, the multinats will move coding operations back here and the cycle with start anew.
Re:Cycle of Poverty (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cycle of Poverty (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you need to find a high-paying occupation that by its nature cannot be outsourced to foreign countries.
This is why so many intelligent Americans end up being lawyers.
Re:Cycle of Poverty (Score:5, Insightful)
Thre are now more educated people in India, they have a better economy and they've got moer infrastructure than before.
As the money gets pumped from place to place, there's a gradual (and slow) increase in the quality of living.
Eventually you run out of people who will work for rice and you have to step up to paying a slightly higher amount, and the big cycle begins again.
Re:Cycle of Poverty (Score:3, Informative)
An alternative is to artificially inflate your prison population and force people to work for their daily bread. The USA is the world leader in that game. I note with interest the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
free work? (Score:2)
Does Russian Vodka count? Seriously though, this is interesting as it's always fun to see the current King Of The Hill get booted off by somebody who works harder or cheaper than the current "King". Honestly, I'm not going to feel too bad for anyone in India who loses their job because of some big company's management decision. All I can say is, "Welcome to my world, Assad."
On a side note, at least in the gray-to-blackhat community, the Russians and comp
Where it ends. (Score:2)
It all ends when USA employees begin paying to work at companies based in India.
About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
When your business consists of undercutting others, and providing services to willfully "outcompete" someone out of a job, don't expect pity.
As a piece of advice I once heard goes: "If you are stupid enough to date someone who dumped someone to be with you, don't be surprised when you get dumped, too."
There is a country where people work for free (Score:5, Funny)
The Race to the Bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
Once one company gets their employees to go along with a heath care cost increase or a salary cut, the other companies will rush to offer just as low pay and benefits. They call this "competitive" compensation. So if the jobs can be outsourced for cheaper, then the majority of businesses will all race to find where that is. It happened with manufacturing jobs, it is happening with service jobs. I don't really know what (if any) jobs are "safe."
Also, don't think this automatically translates into lower prices. It doesn't make the products better or less expensive, just cheaper to make. How much in lower prices do you pay for your Nike tennis shoes made in Burma?
Instability (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of an economic cycle as a simple oscillator. As long as we had loosely-coupled economic systems in various nations, they could go through their economic cycles somewhat independently. Even better, the loose coupling acted as damping to calm down the ranges of cycling. Things only get REALLY bad when the cycles coincide and/or badly influence each other, like in the 1930's.
Enter "Free Trade" and globalization. In
Yes there is! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, such a country exists. However, to be part of this country you need to have a big needle stuck in the back of your head and your whole body gets submerged in Astrolube. Your then stored in this "pod" where this "dream" of your life is pumped into your brain by a big computer.
Now, in this dream your actually answering the phone and solving technical problems and you only "think" your getting paid for it. In real life, that money is getting collected so that more people can get plugged into the machine to make them more money...
There was this dude who realized it was a dream and managed to wake up. He now cleans the floors in the building that holds all the people and the big computer. We hear him wanding around go "Damn Red Buritto..."
live by the sword... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. It brings economic development to poor parts of the world that can do things better and cheaper. It allocates resources very efficiently. But it also creates a lot of instability and waste of resources at the same time. Look how fast the jobs can be created -- and eliminated. And what happens to the people who used to have those jobs. And do you notice how the countries that take the shittiest jobs often end up with polluted environments as a result?
Someday, I hope we will come up with an understanding of how we can balance efficient economics and social good.
Re:live by the sword... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some thoughts about cash flow (Score:5, Insightful)
- Automatization leads to fewer and fewer workers being needed to do the same amount of work, meaning higher profits for the producer.
- Outsourcing leads to those workers being paid less and less , meaning again higher profits.
- This, in turn leads to higher unemployment rates and a higher number of workers with low wages.
- While any individual company might profit from cost-cutting measures, wide-scaled implementation of these measures will lead to too few consumers with enough money to buy the products.
- Thus, to keep the system going, those profiting from it - the producers - must eventually give back enough of the profits to keep the whole thing going, otherwise the distribution of wealth will be too uneven to allow the system to work.
(If you happen to be immoral, other possible ways to boost the economy would be forceful destruction of goods and/or workers, which would a) create the need for rebuilding the destroyed goods and b) lower unemployment, because after the destruction there'd be not only more work but also less workers left. This process is commonly known as "war".)
Preemptive anti-xenophobia post (Score:4, Insightful)
If we've been smart (this is slashdot, right?), we've been saving money to help us through tougher times. More jobs will always be created.
History is not on the side of business (Score:5, Interesting)
The textile industry, at least what I consider the modern, industrialized version of it, began in and generated considerable wealth for England. Then, with the promise of cheaper labor, the bulk of textile manufacturing moved to the Americas, specifically the Carolinas, Georgia and a few New England states. The total generated wealth of the industry started to decline at this point, and another disturbing trend started as well. The distribution of the wealth began moving to a smaller percentage of people, namely the factory owners. Again, the prospect of cheaper labor induced the factory owners to move the bulk of textile manufacturing first to Mexico from the United States, then to the Far East from Mexico.
The important things to remember is that the total wealth generated by the textile industry declined with each geographic hop around the globe, and that fewer and fewer people got a larger and larger percentage of the total wealth of the textile industry.
How does this relate to IT? Well, considering that in the late 1990's we saw a mass movement of IT jobs for the US to India, and the associated wealth generated by the IT industry decline, I think the example of the textile industry is playing out again. Soon, the Indians who offered such low labor rates to win contracts and jobs away from American workers will be on the other side of the equation.
Russia, Eastern Europe and probably some African countries will do to India what they have done to America. The sad thing is that while India has been "carpet-bombing" the IT industry in the United States over the past few years with cheap labor and low costs, ultimately they've been laying the ground work for their own, future demise.
If all you offer is low costs and a cheaper price, then there is nothing to keep customers loyal. As soon as someone else comes along with a cheaper price, your customers will move to them. All because of the trend you started!
History *is* on the side of business (Score:3, Informative)
The example from America's history is pr
Enlish language and customs advantage (Score:4, Interesting)
Holes in the Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
So the cycle we have today, will be the cycle we have tomorrow, or hundreds of years from now, just with different industries, different technologies and different products. You'll benefit from the countries establishing better infrastructures, but did you really expect some countries to continue their civilizations on candle-power? The employment cycles and people wallowing in corporate migration-mires will continue. People will always be subject to the fear that they will lose their jobs to outsourcing. Infact it will be easier and faster every time as corporations establish a base of operations in all the potential countries, and have accumulated experience from making these shifts.
One place will always be better than another, in the eyes of a profit-seeker. Making these evaluations and determining the best choice is what executive decision makers get paid big money for, isn't it?
I live in Hugary... (Score:3, Interesting)
Acceleration and the Outsourcing Omega Point (Score:3, Interesting)
A global economy and global communication accelerate things. The ever-increasing need for IT accelerates people seeking new products, ways to support old products, and development of new projects. Throw these things together and you have a recepie for change and unpredictability - and a chance for uniformity at relatively quick speeds.
The Outsourcing Raget can't go on forever, and my guess is this is part of the last hurrah (or next-to-last) hurrah for Big Outsourcing Moves. At some point all potential markets will be explored, competition and increasing need will affect prices and skills, and you'll probably end up with the bizarre situation of a global market where IT resources seem relatively alike. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw it in ten years.
I work for a company that tried outsourcing and got burned horribly (last I saw, 50% of all outsourcing projects fail). Ironically, they found that good organization, hiring good people, and careful cost containment actually saved them money over outsourcing's total costs. They hired more people (at very good wages) and ended up coming out ahead.
Outsourcing has its place. But my guess is the enthusiasm for it will dip in time, because the speed of change will create homogenization.
Just my theories.
Outsourcing is Outsourcing No Matter Where (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, consider this. We (the US, other nations using a particular region for manpower, etc) are building up an infrastructure and a skilled workforce in a way by creating demand for workers in that area. The area becomes known as a hotspot, wages (and usually the standard of living) rise, all is well. Then it's on to the next area that provides "cheap" labor.
And it's not just overseas where this happens. How many US companies are based in DE or NV because of their tax laws (no, this doesn't relate to actual labor but it does have to do with business decisions and where something is based).
Outsourcing in eastern Europe (Score:4, Interesting)
Singapore!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice move. We need more outsourcing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the issue of foreign labor hits the hightest steps of corporate ladder nothing is going to be done. The funny thing is that if outsourcing is going to continue at this pace, pretty soon we'll end up in a world where only a few people will have buying power. Both American and foreign workers will not have capital; just watch the world's economy go down the crapper.
Re:Nice move. We need more outsourcing! (Score:4, Insightful)
What we need to do is educate the managers, execs, etc. that there is more to life and work than money. That if we work together to take care of eachother that our environment will not be destroyed for the profits of some corporation striving for globalization.
What you are saying is since globalization is hurting you you want it to get so bad it hurts everyone. But what do any of us know. We're just spectators to one of the dumbest systems ever created.
I bet 200 years ago when it was created people thought it was brilliant. But looking back at history I think we could have come this far without slavery.
And just what is slavery? Working for no money. So instead of slavery today we are slowly moving the work to people who are willing to work for less and less. Think of it this way. There was a time when we needed everyone to work. But today we have computerized automation which means we only need a fraction of the work force to produce the same amount of product. So we lay off most of our employees. Now we recognize that some people are willing to work for less than other. And some countries don't have a minimum wage. So we hire people and pay them next to nothing, in effect creating slavery out of capitalism.
I don't know. I got everything I want so I guess it doesn't really matter whatever happens to all of you. But I think things could be better for all of us if they were different.
Serious Sam.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Serious Sam is considered one of the most fun games of late. It cost $20 at the store. The developers are all in the former Yugoslavia. The cost of living in Yugoslavia (and living wages, etc) are *tiny* compared to the US. Not only do they not have to sell a lot of games to make an equivalent amount of money as they would if they were based here in the US, but it proves that there are LOTS of creative and talented programmers elsewhere who can produce QUALITY work and still make a good living for themselves. Personally, I love seeing other countries offer up their best and brightest, it ups the bar for the rest of us. I like the competition!
Out of equilibrium (Score:5, Insightful)
So you wanted to spread prosperity? You got it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Therefore, the fact that these jobs are spreading out is caused by the fact that A. The U.S and other countries currencies are overvalued and the same standard of living can be bought for less in a country with undervalued currency or B. The people living in these lower wage countries have big families to provide for and not so great living conditions and would really like to move one step up the standard of living ladder which means moving the person who lost their job in the high wage country a step down on the ladder. Of course with comparative advantage this is not always a zero sum game.
This is all a big process of equalization of living standards that takes place once people started embracing free market economies and free trade a bunch of years ago. The only thing that makes any difference now is immovable capital like infrastructure and the quality of the legal system.
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. (Score:3, Insightful)
(and sorry folks, "business decisions" are not items of substance) yet pay these guys
a Mil a year and up? They sit on each others Boards, upping each other's compensation,
all enjoying the cash flow circle jerk.
There's (at least) three ways; theft, lawsuits, and slavery.
The theft happens in places like manipulating the stock markets and shuffling around
nonexistent commodities like Enron, or something as simple as lobbying the government
to allow usury rates of >30% on credit cards, or allowing state-run lotteries and casinos.
Or, if you're thinking big, invading another country on false pretenses to steal their resources.
The lawsuits we are seeing with SCO are a good example of the second method. Granted, it's
one corporation taking from another in this case, but the cost of that will be passed down to
consumers or compensated for with unemployment because of less working capital. That
expense rarely impacts executive compensation, which is preserved at all costs.
Money moves around, yet produces nothing of substance. Maybe this really belongs
under theft, because that's what it is.
And then there is slavery. Sure, these people don't work "for free". But even in the US's
past, the slaves were still fed, clothed and sheltered. You can't kill 'em off or there will be
no slaves left to produce those items of substance. But when the profit is made from those
items, only enough is put back to the slave population keep the system working. It's
happening in Mexico, in Indonesia, in India, and in the US migrant worker camps from
the Midwest to California. This is, of course, nothing new. The US was made possible
through the exploitation of others. We saw a bit of change here after the post-war boom
of the '50s and again in the '90s for a few years but when "money" sees this happening,
it moves to quickly remedy the situation, usually by installing a Republican run government.
Here in Indianapolis, there's an area north of the city where they are building these huge,
multi-million dollar houses. Hundreds of them. Where does this money come from?
Is it necessary? Steven Hilbert, who ran Conseco has this huge mansion. He was ran out
of the company for fraud and theft yet he's got his castle. And you've now got this army
of VP weasels that all think that they too deserve to take one to on hundred million a year
and bury in in the ground so they, the trophy wife, and the trust fund kids can live like kings.
Instead of taking the working capital and putting it back into the company, letting people make
a working wage, they instead believe that they should, indeed deserve, to surround themselves
with rewards of their greed and cunning.
That money has to come from someplace, and that's from the backs of those with no other option
but to be enslaved, or starve. This can't last forever, but it's end is not coming soon. At least not
until the lease on their new Hummer H2 runs out. At least that's what Rush told me: It's a good thing.
moving services to Elbonia ... (Score:3, Funny)
Scott Adams was right!
I'll work for free (Score:3, Interesting)
I would work for free if we could all agree to do away with money (or that money has no value) so I could afford to grab food from the local supermarket and live in a small home or apartment close to my job. I don't require a lot to keep me happy. Mostly just musical equipment, computers and tools/books that help me do my job.
But I know hardly any of you would ever agree to give up your money so its a safe bet I'd never have to work for free. Too bad. I would have let you stay home and watch TV. I only care about getting the work done and automated once and forever. I find myself continually repeating the same tasks over and over again for money, in our current system, but I guess this is what makes more jobs.
Wage inflation in India (Score:3, Interesting)
I think these articles are bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
2) Russian offshore-development industry is much smaller than Indian one (both in absolute terms and per capita).
3) There are no significant growth reserves (this also applies to Eastern Europe).
4) The existance of a few successful companies doesn't constitute an industry (or a threat to India).
5) Without initial investments you can't create a large IT industry. India did those investments.
6) There are no real figures that indicate this process of "outsourcing outsourcing" is actually happening.
7) etc.
Usual sensationalistic journalism. Bettet than Blair's inventions, but not much better.
Eventually they'll screw themselves (Score:4, Funny)
Offshore Outsourcing Threatens Offshore Outsourcin (Score:3, Funny)
And Buffalo buffaloes buffalo Buffalo buffaloes.
Re:There are lots of free workers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There are lots of free workers (Score:5, Insightful)
Issue: I have a software package that doesn't due what our company needs it to do and I need some modifications to it. The developers/company doesn't want to do it.
Closed Source/Proprietary: - You beg the vendor to do it, and threaten to switch if they don't. This is generally a limited threat, because of the fact that it will cost your company a huge amount of time and effort to switch to another vendor (who will have other issues). You could offer to pay the vendor for the development, but unless they are a small shop this probably won't do the trick either, or you will be paying HUGE $$$$ to them. You could have your own developers, provide some type of workaround, but this will break when the vendors upgrade/fix their code. Basically you have no good option, except to pray that the vendor will address your issue. Also when the vendor does release the upgrade, it will probably contain code enhansements that you don't care about, but will probably cause you other errors... I have lived in this world for a long time... and still do with Oracle and Microsoft.
Option 2, use Open Source: You quickly determine that nobody is going to work on the "patch/enhansement" that you want. You will need to now hire a coder that knows the language of the system (probably C). That coder will have to take some time getting up to speed on the program, and then fix it. The coder can then release that code back to the open source community, and it will "probably" make it in future releases. Now if you find yourself making significant changes to the code on a regular basis, then I would hire/contract development to give you what you want, and you wouldn't have to pay for time needed to get the developer use to the code. They can still release their code back to the open-source community, and it probably will get put in the main codebase, so you will be protected with future upgrades.
Both options cost time and money, development isn't cheap, and some companies hate giving stuff they paid for away for free. However, at the end of the day THEY ARE IN CONTROL!!!, not some outside vendor.
This flys in the face of "nobody ever got fired for buying xxx".
Re:Open Source is the answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Source is the answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats more, I don't think I'd trust running a control system that someone had written for free. Where would I get support? Updates? Who would I complain to if it went wrong without running the risk of the OSS programmers saying 'Sod it. Can't be bothered any more.'
As for the work being higher quality, you may well be write in the case of the big and famous OSS projects like Linux, OpenOffice, Gimp and so forth, but don't go thinking that OSS === Good Software any more than Pay For Software === Good Software. You get utter tripe in both camps.
Righto (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, those Indians sure are living the high-life financially at the moment.
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Re:The democratic party has no solution... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually I think castrating the CIA would do a good bit to prevent the rise to power of types like OBL and Saddam. Ya' see both of them had a lot of help from the CIA earlier in there 'careers'. The CIA has a policy of supporting the enemy of our enemy, no matter how unsavory the character is, or what his motives are. Well, when you lie down with dogs you get fleas. And we are paying the price for our past actions now. And we are doing it again. We are, so hypocritically, allowing a terror group in Iraq to keep it's weapons and camps, because they are against Iran. I for one will not be surprised one bit when in 10-20 years we are dealing with that group forcefully after they blew up some Americans.
Re:Proves globalization works (Score:3, Interesting)
The only people getting richer are the board.
Stop worshipping at the scrotums of businessmen and get a clue. Business is out to fuck you and they will fuck you.
It's cost based not talent (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong, lots of capable talent in the US, the talent just wants more money than the foreign outsource shops cost. Do you understand free market economics? Price point is everything. You sell yourself cheap so you never get laid off. I cut out the middle-man and contract directly with the customer reducing my market price-point and have more offers for work than I can service. Foreign outsource