Reverse Off-Shoring 216
punkish writes "India is becoming more attractive to information technology workers from Western countries. Some local IT companies, such as Infosys Technologies in Bangalore, are now able to offer salaries and other perks that are comparable to what Western IT talent would find in their home countries. Infosys, which is currently training 126 Americans at its cutting-edge complex in Mysore, expects to employ 300 Americans by the end of 2006 and add a large contingent from Great Britain next year."
Indians will complain about foreigners soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Which country will be the next cheap target?
When will we come full circle and realise that there are dedicated capable individuals in the original countries?
I speak to people from all around the world and there are examples of in-country outshoring occuring (jobs in London being replaced with staff in Manchester - its simply cheaper up North) and the London staff were just as outraged, its peoples lives the managers are playing with and sometimes the bottom line isn't that important.
I would make a terrible manager because as long as I could break even in my field I would be happy.
Re:Indians will complain about foreigners soon (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is, unfortunately, very important. Remember that the companies that can afford to offshore/outshore are generally larger companies which tend to be shareholder-owned and require either equity or debt financing.
The trouble with being beholden to shareholders is that capital really is mobile and shareholders are normally a greedy bunch. If the business does not offer a good bottom line - leading to all the things that shareholders like to have, for example a good dividend or a good rise in the share price, shareholders will tend to want to move their money elsewhere. Assume that you can invest in company A which offers a 4% return on equity or company B which offers a 10% return on equity. Which would you invest in as a shareholder?
You may argue that shareholders are increasingly placing more importance on things like corporate social responsibility and so on, but as a shareholder myself, I can tell you that it's really really hard to make an assessment based on that. The corporate social responsibility movement is plagued by the fact that MANY companies make promises (to varying degrees of compliance) and it costs me a LOT of time and effort to check which ones actually comply with their statements or not. Ultimately, I throw my hands up in the air, give up, and use ROE for my investment decisions.
I disagree that you'd make a bad manager, I think you'd be a great one in certain conditions. You might not be a great manager in a profit-driven, shareholder-owned multinational corporation but the business world isn't exclusively those. There are lots of smaller companies which are more local and people-focused which is where I think your refreshing attitude would be a valuable asset.
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I suspect there are a number of things in play, such as distrust of internal staff, the managers' egos etc. but I will put forward my own hypothesis as well.
I refer to it as 'Cargo Cult Management'. Managers are very much 'herd' animals. The herd heads off in a direction and they follow. After all, most managers are *not* selected for risk taking.
An aspect of this herd
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First, when people think of "shareholders" they think of individuals -- even if it is wealthy individuals like Warren Buffet. But that isn't the reality. The "shareholders" with weight are the large institutions -- i.e. mutual funds and pension programs. The NY and California public employee pension funds are 2 of the most powerful investors on Wall
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New products
New markets
Reduced costs due to things such as the streamlining of processes by which the product is made
One of those three things may cost jobs (#3 due to things like automation). However, the first two, if done properly, can be performed in a socially responsible way and actually lead
A very good question.. (Score:2)
Remember that shareholders get return on their invested money from two sources: dividends and the sale price of the shares when they get around to selling them. Theoretically, it shouldn't matter if the company doesn't pay any dividends at all, because the increase in
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You make the assumption that greedy is a bad thing (Score:2)
Re:You make the assumption that greedy is a bad th (Score:5, Insightful)
10 very nice people may invest in your company. If they can do better somewhere else, half of them may very nicely decide to invest somewhere else, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do, after all. (Everybody is all about how other people should make economically-poor decisions for the "greater good", a.k.a., "my benefit", but very few people really step up to the plate and deliberately select underperforming options when they have the choice. Non-zero, but few.)
In the aggregate, these otherwise nice people look incredibly greedy to the company they had the investment in, and the company feels incredible pressure to do better, in a way far out of proportion to the exertion of the investors.
Greed isn't an entirely inaccurate description of the results, but it may not describe motives; I have a hard time calling "investing in a 5% return instead of a 2% return" 'greed'. That's more like 'sensible', not 'greedy', and the opposite 'stupid'. (All else being equal of course, I'm ignoring the risk factors.) Besides, given that the economy isn't a zero-sum game (bolded because more people need to actually realize and internalize that) and that 2% vs 5% difference may very well be real if you're investing in a capital-producing company, it's not even necessarily a good decision for society to take the 2% either. That's the magic of capitalism and the market, to harness "greed" for the greater good of society.
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Do you believe that everything valuable can, let alone should, have a price tag?
If not, then either your premises are false even on your own terms or you're not addressing his point.
Capitalism is an excellent, unparalleled, peerless, unmatched system, in a league all its own and very nearly magical at allocating scarce resources for maximum return.
One simple and ironic fact is, it sucks at distributing the abundant ones: nobody can make any money on those. The only way to make it work there is to produc
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I have no idea what you're babbling about. I was just clarifying the point that "greed" is an easily-misunderstood word. Where you leap to the idea that "everything" should have a price tag or the entire idea of scarcity is beyond me. I've double-checked my post and the one I was replying to and I still can't find it.
(Did you
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Perhaps I misread your blanket assertion that refusing a 5% return in favor of a 2% return is 'stupid'. Did some electrons go dogie on us here? Should I send Jake and his nephew out to search the tubes?
The discussion is on the ethics of seeking maximum return regardless of other considerations. That's commonly called "greed". Your example was of seeking maximum return regardless of other considerations. You called "its opposite 'stupid'".
My reply was addressing the necessary premise: for that to work wit
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China.
There are currently great opportunities within IBM for those who speak mandarin.
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Second, I'm living proof that this concept has appeal. I plan to move to the Philippines when I have my new venture somewhat sorted. Why? Because if it can make $2,000 a month I can live very well, even a bit extravagently. I think I have found something that has potential to make th
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Assuming you're paying yourself a wage in line with what you get working for some other company, you're actually operating at a loss. Don't forget the opportunity costs. Just for starting a business, you are opening yourself up to a lot more risk - relatively unstable income and cash flows, for one. Suppliers are going to insist you pay up fully on time whereas customers tend to try to find ways to delay payment for as long as possible.
Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
Cultural Outsider: Agreed. But cities like Bombay and Pune are so culturally varied with Americans, Germans and even French indians think themselves as outsiders.
Far from american friends???: Do you know the local DSL provider provides you with 1 Mbps connection at $100 a month? Agreed it is costlier, but the connection is 89% uptime.
Think abd verify before you answer.
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Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you crazy? First of all 89% uptime is bullshit, it means the connection will be down for 3 days a month. Second, what does "far" have to do with a DSL connection? You have to be very nerdish to think a DSL connection compares to being actually close to your friends.
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Youre on Slashdot.
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Is this supposed to be good? Here in the UK, I am paying about half that for four times the bandwidth and I can't remember the last time there was any downtime.
I can see the advantage in moving somewhere with a rich cultural heritage and a low cost of living, but if infrastructure is that much more expensive then it looks like a much less interesting proposition
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Crappier infrastrcuture??? At 300 million mobile phones, i wish to think different.
You can wish all you like, but you'd still not understand what he was talking about. He means things like roads, indoor plumbing, you know... infrastructure. Not mobile phones. This whole story is laughable in any case, I mean what, in 2004 25% of India's population was below the poverty line, which is, wait for it, about 8 dollars a month. Indians won't be getting western wages anytime soon, and if they do, you know what will happen? The companies will move straight on to China. Or south east asia. Or Russia. Companies don't go to India because they like the curry, they go there because its cheap. Thats what we call the bottom line.
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C//
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and the matter of old age, poor countries don't exactly tend to have good free medical care (the US wrings out your savings first but i belive in the ultimate they do give it free to those with nothing left).
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C//
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
From first-hand experience, I can tell you that on a middle class US salary, you can live like a rich man in India. The western standard of living, with not just indoor plumbing, but central air, a luxurious house, satillite or cable TV, will all be present and accounted for. If you live in a major Indian city, the electricity will be highly reliable as well. You'll also get some perks middle-class westerners are not used to, namely a personal cook, maid, nanny, and often driver. This will be your standard of living at home, and at work, and often at the shopping areas and restaurants other well-to-do Indians frequent.
Now, the bad stuff. Your power will go out more often than here in the states, with how much more often depending on the exact area. Worse of all, as soon as you leave the comfortable world of the upper-classes, which will happen unless you shut yourself in, you'll have to deal with the masses of India's urban poor. Most Americans would not be comfortable wandering around anything but the posh areas of an Indian city. The filth, the poverty, the sheer number of beggers, the traffic, the pollution, etc, are something that are totally alien to all but America's hardened inner-city residents. Then there is the climate --- much of India is tropical, and if you're from a temperate part of the US, the heat and humidity will kill you. Imagine the hottest, most humid day in Georgia or Florida, summer torrential-downpours and all, except 10 degrees hotter, and with more frequent torrential downpours. Last but not least is the pervasive corruption. India is a lot better in this regard than some of its surrounding countries (Pakistan and Bangladesh), but the level of corruption is still something alien to Americans. For as much as Americans bitch about corruption, day-to-day corruption among the rank-and-file beauracracy in the United States is almost non-existant. Living in India, you WILL eventually have to pay a bribe to someone, whether it is to get your phone connected, pay a parking ticket, whatever.
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From first-hand experience, I can tell you that on a middle class US salary, you can live like a rich man in India.
Absoloutely. However, my point was, why would they give someone a middle class salary in India, when they can give someone the same in the US without any of the associated problems? Reverse outsourcing is nonsense.
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More generally, it's something that some Americans have been doing for a long time. Anybody who works in foreign development knows somebody who has taken a posting in a developing nation, because it allows them to save a huge amount of thei
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It's still much cheaper. You can pay an American in India $50K per year, and he can live the way he would in the US for $150K per year.
See your weak link here is believing that corporations care about the quality of life of their staff. Also, keep in mind that they can employ an Indian to do the same job for $10k a year. Why would they waste money on sending an American? Couple this with your savings on overhead, and you can see why reverse outsourcing is ludicrous.
Anybody who works in foreign develop
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Most successful corporations do care about the quality of life of their staff. Happy workers are much more productive workers. There are examples of ones that don't, but its a l
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STDs and TB you won't build
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In 1973 55% of India's population was living below the poverty line. Standards of living are improving rapidly over there.
They will in the IT industry. Not US salaries, but certainly salaries comparable to other western countries. Experienced p
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Who cares about mobile phones? They have a negative impact on quality of life when they do work.
I think the GP was referring to things like: sewers, highways, clean water, state-of-the-art hospitals, good schools, inspected produce and meat, a huge variety of consumer goods, and all the other trappings of Western societies. These things are in short supply in many parts of India, China, and other off-shoring centers.
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India's infrastructure is mediocre [economist.com].
"Infrastructure" doesn't refer just to cell phone providers. It refers to:
* Roadways
* Train systems
* Airline systems
* Electrical provision
* Clean water provision
and so forth. "Infrastructure" refers to all those basic goods and services which form
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you can make up for that with backup generators, i'd imagine communication is actually far more of an issue since there is little equivilent of the backup generator for it (there is satalite but thats expensive and very high latency).
89% uptime. = fucking terrible. (Score:2)
or to put it another way when you wan't to fire off an e-mail to a friend or worse a buisness contact there is a 1 in 10 chance that you will fail.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Widening your cultural background + meeting other people and making new friends + broadening your horizon and learning new things in the process = a richer life filled with more challenges and experiences
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As someone who has grown up in the US, I have experienced a drastic reduction in the standard of living to which I am accustomed. Even though my salary is many times higher than the average Indian and even though the buying power of the dollar is significantly better than the rupee (a good meal at a nice restauran
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Yes! This will drive many Americans nutty, particularly those from uptight parts of the country (eg: northeast). For those who haven't experienced it: imagine the American South, except worse.
Something as simple as a FIFO line, whether it be at a grocery store or a red light, is not implemented in India. Indians don't
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Air pollution is unbearable
Internet is fairly slow (128-256kbps MAX) and unreliable
Prompt service is rare (fast food means about 20mins)
Quality electronics equipment is hard to find and very expensive
Given that you are earning much above the norm for the location, I offer the following suggestions:
-buy a generator?
-just foreign smells or toxicity?
-no youtube for you, move
-you have no patience?
-outsource
cost of living (Score:5, Informative)
Westerners who have lived in developing countries know this is not entirely true.
If you're an "average" local living in average conditions, your cost of living will be lower than an "average" person in North America, but if you want to live at western standards (house in a nice neighbourhood, car, big TV, stereo, washer dryer etc.) then expect to pay the same or more for the products/services you want. In a developing country, public transport may not even be an option; a car could be an absolute necessity, and therefore an unavoidable expense. To live at western standards you probably won't see many savings in your expenses over actually being in the west.
On the other side of the coin, you could probably afford such luxuries as a live-in housekeeper.
Depending on where you live, there may be savings from low or non-existent income taxes. You could come out a bit ahead from this.
However, in some countries (those in the Gulf region, for example), foreigners are not allowed to buy property. Rent for a nice villa or apartment is as high or higher than what you would pay in Europe/N-Am. If you're paying a mortgage, at least your expenses are adding to your equity, but when you pay rent, that money is gone. This rent is like a defacto tax on foreigners because it is unavoidable, but instead of the money going to the government, it goes directly to the local who owns the property you live in.
If you have children, expect to pay for them to go to school.
Healthcare, especially healthcare which is to western standards, is another expense to keep in mind.
Taking part in leisure activities means more expenses; public recreation facilities which are normal in the west aren't normal in developing countries. Private clubs provide sports facilities, clean beaches etc. etc.
By living in a developing country, a western professional will probably enjoy a nice lifestyle, but to do so means that savings likely won't be much greater than they would be in the west. Obviously, one can do without many of these expenses, live more like the average locals do and save money, but one can also save money in the west by living a much simpler lifestyle. Many people who work overseas do so for the experience.
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You misspelled prostitute.
Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
Its not just India. (Score:2, Interesting)
My advice to the new globalist thinker: Travel far and wide and don't bother fooling yourself into thinking you ever actually 'own' a house (it owns you). Go nomad.
Whats needed in this day and age are people who step across language boundaries, and state bo
Re:Its not just India. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or alternatively, perhaps your job isn't the most important thing in your life. Perhaps you have kids going through school, perhaps you have friends you want to stay in touch with, perhaps your dear old mum needs a hand...
Cheers,
Ian
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I don't know where you're cut-and-pasting your rhetoric from, but you really should stop. It's annoying, doesn't help your point, and makes you sound like an imbecile.
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Yes, and those in the developing world give up that necessity every day. Americans can afford to visit family an airplane ride away on a regular basis. Much of the world can't. Americans almost never face the prospect of having to sever ties with their extended family, just to make a better life for their children. However
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For certain valuations of "Americans". Those that cannot obviously deserve their poverty and belong to the loser class that the rest of us can look down on.
This is yet another instance of generalizations, but otherwise an interesting post.
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Most people in the developing world don't have families that are an airplane ride away. It's only in countries like America that families can afford to spread out over five hundred kilometres. However, that is a sacrifice that millions of immigrants make every year.
Most immigrants who come over to America are working for the purpose of bringing their fa
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You do realize that India is a good half the size of the US, don't you? A kid who comes from southern India to attend a good school in Dehli or Calcutta may easily live a thousand miles away from his family. India isn't like the United States, where there is relative prosperity all around. What prosperity exists is concentrated in a few population centers,
Most immigrants who come over to America are working for the purpo
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We absolutely need to be able to cross boundaries freely and work together. It is, economically speaking, the most sanguine decision we can make. However, politics and national ideals intervene.
I have lived in England for the past decade and, falling in love with the country and Europe in general, I've wanted to work in the European Union for quite a few year
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Secondly is it really true that you need 200k to start a business (as a foreigner?). A PLC perhaps, but a Ltd.
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The 200,000 quid is a separate requirement that's imposed by the Home Office on foreign nationals, I suppose as a deterrent for people who start little "businesses" that are shell companies and merely used to circumvent the normal immigrations process. The money has to be owned by the business and used for business purposes and cannot be taken out for a period of (I beli
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The human element (Score:2)
My advice to the new globalist thinker: Travel far and wide and don't bother fooling yourself into thinking you ever actually 'own' a house (it owns you). Go nomad.
"
You forget the human element. Repeated relocation comes at the cost of close friends, family,
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"don't bother fooling yourself into thinking you ever actually 'own' a house (it owns you). Go nomad."
This is a misguided misunderstanding of what owning a home should be. You are absolutely right if you think of a 'house' as your final resting point. You are absolutely wrong when you consider a 'house' to be Real Estate (the only real property in the world) and an investment and further a vehicle for future investment an wealth building. Real Estate values rise con
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I forgot who authored the study, but it was referenced in a book by Burton Malkiel called "A Random Walk on Wall Street", which said that investments in a diversified equities portfolio over a long period of time (assuming that all dividends are reinvested) have demonstrated the greatest returns over
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Will not last (Score:2)
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So your first statement is true for values of shortly ~40 years.
BTW OAPs do not currently outnumber the youth either. [bbc.co.uk]
Reverse Off-Shoring: (Score:2)
We really need more early ante-prior-pre-planning for these linguistic decisions.
It's part of the cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a natural cycle seem to countries go through when they finally get their act together in engineering:
- Growth from low-cost outsourcing
- Growth due to home-grown businesses exporting good IP
- Imposition of copyright and patent protection
- Growth due home-grown businesses selling IP locally, and the death of outsourcing
I think in 1980's, an Indian programmer cost about $2K/year. Now that the outsourcing companies have run out of good local talent in places like Bangalore, salaries are rising to the point that it makes less sense to outsource engineering and programming to India. Countries like Romania look better.
To continue growth, innovators in India will need to create their own businesses to compete with Silicon Valley startups. To some extent, they seem to be started at this. For example, the customer-relationship software I'm using at the moment, VtigerCRM, is a shameless copy of opensource software from SugarCRM, and it's shamelessly copying Salesforce.com functionality. Indian investors are funding the Vtiger opensource alternative, betting they can beat SugarCRM and Salesforce.com at their own game. Maybe they're right.
However, the exported software market is only so big. As programmers in India tire of making money from foreign countries where software is actually worth something, they'll force their government to crack down on IP theft. This will create a local market for programmers, greatly fueling high-tech business growth. It also will mostly kill their outsourcing business, since salaries will then be able to rise above the threshold where outsourcing to India makes sense.
I hope for a similar cycle to be followed in China. When China and India are done with the outsourcing business, we can move to other countries that need to come forward into the new millenium. Outsourcing our jobs is massively painful, but at least we're helping make the world a better place.
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Then there will be an equilibrium of sorts, but there's one continent left to consider next: Africa. Now THAT's got to be an offshorer's wet dream, although the political situation and the technical infrastructure isn't in any shape to support it. I give it about 20 or 30 years before
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Except for that fact that you have economists raising hell over the fact that the U.S. imports more than it exports (read: the "poor" are getting richer and the "rich" are getting poorer). Sure if you believe the outdated U.S. system of "standard of living", things are getting worse, but in t
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Are we talking "engineering" in the slashdot vernacular or real engineering? Please clarify.
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It's still kinda-sorta true, after a fashion. Technology products made for sale in Japan are typically of lower quality than ones made for sale in the west. They're also typically released months earlier. The Japanese release is like a 'beta' of the product. This happens because the Japanese are more willing to splurge on dubious tec
Re:With dirtroad main streets and cow dung everywh (Score:2)
I live in North Carolina, where for a couple hundred years now we've taken pride in making qualit
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We probably also agree that stopping them from getting here in the first place is the right thing to do. Build that fence. Defend it.
On the subject of the ones who are already here, we have at least th
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Is there a better free alternative?
How long? (Score:5, Funny)
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HA! then the tech support girl said something like "WOT YAH NEED TA DUE EEIS, TAKE THAT THERE MOUHUS AN CLIKKK EEIT RIAHT ON THAT THEYRE IKAHN". I had no idea what she was saying, her accent was so heavy... so I asked to speak to a manager and an hour later I finally go a hold of Rajiv in Bangalore and everything was straightened out.
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Its good... (Score:2, Interesting)
Traditionally the West gives emphasis on individualism and the East favours interdependence. A western tourist to India will see a lot of colour and crowd - but they may not get the idea behind India - a nation of a billion people with 15 official languages more than 500 languages and 2000 dialects. But someone who works in India for a short while (even on a sterilised IT campus) will get a better perception of the country. They can also dispel the ling
Wow, this article is about me! (Score:4, Interesting)
If anyone has any questions about the article, wtf I'm doing in India, what it's like, etc... post here and I will do my best to answer them!
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The driving is insane. There's a Youtube video somewhere of an India
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FYI, it's traditional to eat with the right hand only, with full skin-on-food contact. The left is considered a bit unclean (you can probably figure out why), so it can be tricky to eat everything using just one hand. It was much easier to learn to use chopsticks!
Re:Wow, this article is about me! (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the people I work with day to day are in the US group, with the people leading the training (or whatever HR seminar) being Indian. That'll change when we start working on the actual development teams here.
After hours, we interact a lot with locals... typically Indian trainees going through the same process we are. We're all on the same campus, and there's a lot of recreational things to do (bowling, badminton, basketball... blah blah blah) together. We're actually trying to get together a US vs. India Counter Strike match right now. At the same time, we usually go out to eat, drink, and explore India in groups of US folk.
It's definitely not an internship... (for some reason I have to keep reminding my mother this). It's a real, live job. I honestly don't know what the advancement path will be like down the road, but the company is expanding pretty rapidly, so I would assume there's a path there should I want to keep going down it.
we develop code for India in Wisconsin (Score:2)
Cool... (Score:2)
"off shored"...
30 days: Outsourcing (Score:2)
http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/30days/m ain.html [fxnetworks.com]
My company is doing hefty outsourcing. My group used to be mostly in Canada/USA with a bit of other countries. Now we are more like an even split between Canada/India/China.
I used to find it wasteful just dealing Canada/USA when we spoke the same language and had close to the same time zone. Now it is just FUBAR. By the time upper man
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Splitting development of the same product up into different locations in the same country is not the brightest thing to do. Across international borders that still share the basics, still less bright, but throw in massive language/geographic/time zone divide and you are looking for disaster. But hey the books will look better this quarter...
It has been long enough at this point that I can probably include facts
Why not Costa Rica Instead (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently outsourced myself to Costa Rica and am enjoying it. Unlike the people in the article who work for companies in India, I do not work for any companies here in Costa Rica. The pay would be lousy. Instead I do the same software development work I did in California.
Here is link to a writeup I wrote recently on the experience:Outsourcing Myself to Costa Rica [bercik.org]
REAL reverse off-shoring (Score:5, Interesting)
In a real example of reverse off-shoring, I was contacted a few months ago by someone from an Indian consulting company that needed someone to do some development work for them who was "closer to the customer" (in this case closer to their customer in the US - I'm in the US). I basked in the irony for a while and then decided against it.
Free Enterprise & Open Markets (Score:2)
It isn't cheap labor, folks! (Score:2)
Here are some reasons jobs are outsourcing overseas:
1. The people are better educated. OK, so maybe U.S. comp-sci people from a top-notch University like MIT might be the best in the world, but that is the minority of people in the tech buisness. The average Indian who goes in for an IT tech support job is better educated in the basics of math, science, and a lot of times english, than the average American who goes in