On 12/12/06, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I was tempted to make the subject line "HA HA HA HA HA ..." http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2006/tc20061207_164472.htm?campaign_id=bier_tcc.g3a.rss1211a After 10 months of working with software developers in Bangalore, India, Bill Wood was ready to call it quits. The local engineers would start a project, get a few months' experience, and then bolt for greener pastures, says the U.S.-based executive. Attrition rose to such a high level that year that Wood's company had to replace its entire staff, some positions more than once. "It did not work well at all," recalls Wood, vice-president of engineering at Ping Identity, a maker of Internet security software for corporations. Frustrated, Wood began searching for a partner outside India. He scoured 15 companies in 8 different countries, including Russia, Mexico, Argentina, and Vietnam. That path is being trod by a lot of executives, eager for new sources of low-cost, high-tech talent outside India. Many are fed up with the outsourcing hub of Bangalore, where salaries for info tech staff are growing at 12% to 14% a year, turnover is increasing, and an influx of workers is straining city resources." ===== The story goes on in excruciating detail and without apparent irony on how expensive and problematic it's become for the poor corporate types to wring a little more profit margin out of the third world at the expense of their home country's economy. It's <sob> heartbreaking! I especially love that they're thinking of moving development of their security software to Russia. And Marketing, I'm guessing, will go to Nigeria? -- Lan Barnes
I have a piece on this which I will try to find, called, The Conscience of a Corporate Mercenary, which tells the goals and ambitions from the point of view of an ambitious employee in harsh cynical language. Most CEOs and HR people looking to outsource to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the like would do very well to read it. I contains such thoughts as "I am looking to score and move on to the next project," and "I have my own health care and retirement plans, and they don't include working for you for the next 20-30 years," or my favorite "I am not a company man. I am only interested in the 'company vision' to extend it results in my getting paid more." Failure to recognize that folks who live in impoverished circumstances who have lucrative skills will not stick around for lousy pay once they have the necesarry skills and minimal experience will, I am sure, eventually cause most of the US corporations addicted to this kind of outsourcing to rethink this strategy. Whether the lower echelons of US workforce will be able to survive the process is another question. Robert Donovan -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
