I used to work *for *a major outsourcer, and part of taking on new contracts was always a major source of hostility and frustration from end-users and (particularly) those IT staff who had been "transitioned" into our company.We had "business systems managers" being moved into desktop support roles which naturally didn't sit with them very well - especially when they learned that our Prison Service contract meant they'd be spending an inordinate amount of time in jails rather than swanning around office blocks as they had done previously. Often staff who used to work for the now-outsourced company who attempt to trip you up and withhold knowledge at every opportunity to try and protect their little realms, especially those who were now seeing their servers and directory services moved to the authority of the relevant remote support teams. Obtaining information about the intricacies of applications was next to impossible in some cases. The removal of administrative access was always a source of great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Having said that, when managed correctly - and not constantly springing the cost of "projects" onto the customer that fall outside of normal support - I've seen the outsourced model do quite well. It was, however, dependent on the quality of the support staff. I've seen some accounts really struggle without staff who understood how to try and win the hearts and minds of the end-users. 2009/10/14 Sherry Abercrombie <saber...@gmail.com> > Guys and gals, > > I've returned to college this fall after about 15 years to finally finish > up a degree I started on about 25 years ago. One of my classes this > semester is Macro Economics. Last night my professor gave us an essay > question for a test next Monday that is potentially 50% or more of our test > grade. The topic is on outsourcing and I wanted to toss this out for > discussion, input, personal experiences etc etc. The questions I have to > answer are: > > What is the economic justification given for outsourcing? > Where is the outsourcing taking place? (Obviously, I'm focusing on the IT > field, specifically technical support) > What types of jobs are these workers performing? > What is the benefit to the business? To foreign workers? > > I talked with my professor and told her what approach I wanted to take, > from the end user perspective, and that I had experienced the tech support > being outsourced. She liked that idea a lot. Obviously, I will be looking > for other news articles to support my essay. What I'm looking for is > thoughts, opinions, personal experiences from an end user perspective, has > anyone here been outsourced? What was that like? I'm just taking an > informal poll from a group of my peers that I know has had personal > experience in some way with this subject. > > Try to keep it on topic, I did get Stu's OK before sending this, so a big > Thanks Stu for the use of these lists to help with my exam. > -- > Sherry Abercrombie > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." > Arthur C. Clarke > Sent from Haltom City, TX, United States -- "On two occasions...I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." http://raythestray.blogspot.com
