If someone can do your job for less money than you, let them.
Few things in my professional life peeve me as much as some U.S. programmers' attitudes towards outsourcing. I've been in many meetings where the "issue" is discussed, and it's amazing how stiff and uncomfortable people get over such an innocent and obvious idea.
Outsourcing is sometimes problematic for legitimate reasons, but too often the discussion is driven by greed, entitlement, and small-mindedness.
Excuses
Inside many U.S. companies, programmers are waging a secret political war of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) against outsourcing.
"They barely speak English" - It's often true, I know. Communicating advanced, nuanced project details with someone who has a weak command of English is hard -- sometimes impossible. But you have to ask yourself, "are my communication skills worth x times more money?" Sometimes, yes. Often, no.
"They're not in our office" - Hey, isn't that a good thing!? I don't know about you, but I get way more work done when I'm away from office distractions.
"They're incompetent" - The notion that Indian or Chinese or Romanian programmers are less skilled than U.S. programmers is utterly laughable. You might be able to argue that cultural differences prevent foreigners from understanding your problem space as well as you do. But to suggest that the U.S. has a monopoly on hacker culture is absurd.
Solutions
Embrace eagerness. There are few things as powerful as someone who's really excited about a project. Find a way to harness this energy, whether it's in Seattle, Kansas, or Bangalore.
Make yourself valuable. Use outsourcing as an opportunity to move up the value chain. Maybe you can be the head programmer on a team of Chinese workers. Or how about starting a business that leverages the lower cost of offshore talent?
Study economics. The forces of worker supply and demand are well known, and even an Obama speech can't stop them. If someone is willing (and able) to do your job for less money than you, get over it!
Think globally. If you haven't already read The 4-Hour Work Week, please do. Embrace the planet, and you might even get to travel to amazing places like Shanghai or Singapore.
Help others. Greed is a terrible thing. If you've had some success as a developer, share your knowledge and experience with others. Helping people is fun, and it's the right thing to do.
Admit that you're already outsourcing. I recently read that 80% of goods at Wal-Mart are manufactured in China. Most likely, the clothes you're wearing were outsourced to Indonesia or Thailand or India. If it's okay to outsource your clothes, why is your project different?
Conclusion
I know this is a controversial issue, and I'd love to hear your comments. Please post them! Flamers will be deleted, so be nice!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Outsourcing: Get Over It!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Competition is a part of life, and nature. As the larger animals are generally selected by nature, so the smarter, more educated humans are beginning to be selected. If all you can offer is the ability to operate a machine, you may be doomed. It doesnt seem fair, and it certainly isn't an uplifting message, but it's the truth. It's life.
Times and demands of employers are changing -- if you can't adapt, you're doomed to suffer. Again, this message appears unfortunate, but that's simply how it works.
Along these lines, I'm considering spending some of my consulting fees on having offshore developers support my development efforts.
I can already have one or two fulltime developers work for me and I would still be able to make a proper living and the increase in productivity will inevitably soon warrant a hefty increase in my fees.
I think this is a rather simplistic view of outsourcing and its impacts. I don't entirely disagree with the conclusion "get over it", if only because I do not think it is productive for industry members to be concerned over decisions they often have little control in.
From a freelance/consultant point of view, a laissez-faire, carefree attitude regarding job loss (since you're already constantly cycling) is much easier to maintain than for those in a steady employment not used to "following the money", as it were.
Furthermore, the economic impact on the United States is utterly ignored even though this is a major concern in the debate. Money paid to overseas programmers does not feed back into the economy which created the jobs themselves. This strikes some as rather wrong or unfair. I note that you mention the global economy, which conveniently ignores middle-men such as storefronts, vendors, and service providers who are hurt by job loss indirectly. Perhaps you believe communities are relics of a bygone era, I cannot be sure.
My final point for the sake of argument: Do the companies created and supported by a constant flow of money from primarily domestic sources have a de facto responsibility to engage in a symbiotic relationship by hiring from within the domestic sphere? Or are companies simply money hungry leeches that have only the responsibility to make as much money as possible, no matter how many lives must be crushed to prevent opposition to ever increasing profits?
I respect your view, but I suggest you write a more detailed and well thought out article the next time you address this issue.
I suppose it depends on what field you refer to when it comes to outsourcing. I work at an interactive design agency and we tried to push off some of our more repetitious work design and dev work to an outsourcing firm in Costa Rica.
Let me tell you...what an absolute disaster.
Even after providing both development and creative briefs as well as a style and development guide they managed to fudge up everything. It was more work than it was worth to "train" these people to push quality work out.
We had to send files back more than once the day things were supposed to launch because they lacked any quality assurance, or rather the QA personnel they employed didn't even check HALF of the work they were supposed to.
I understand your points and they are valid for many reasons, but the reason developers in the US cost more is typically because the work gets done and with an overall higher quality.
These developers whine mostly because they know the work being done by many outsourcing firms is below par and that they can do more, but they do happen to cost a premium.
You have to remember though, that when a company starts outsourcing, there inevitably starts a brain drain from the company. There was a Foote study, according to Penny Lunt Crosman at Network Computing, where 60 out of 100 projects underperformed because the projects started hemorrhaging key people. "They were reaping cost savings, but leaving a wake of disaster," says Foote.
Outsourcing dramatically reduces morale for other employees, almost universally.
Outsourcing creates a spiral downward pressure on salaries.
Outsourcing puts your data at higher risk of disruption from political and environmental hazards.
Rory L. Terry in this this CNN article best sums up my sociatel and environmental concerns when it comes to outsourcing:
The costs of the decision to outsource are not borne by the decision maker. As a society and as a country, we experience many costs from outsourcing, including the loss of jobs, social costs, higher costs of raw materials and loss of national sovereignty. Loss of jobs reduces the tax base, creates high unemployment benefit costs, and raises the cost of government retraining programs. Displaced, unemployed workers have higher rates of child and spousal abuse, alcoholism, bankruptcy, divorce, etc. As China and India and other large populations grow, they demand huge quantities of oil, gas, steel and other basic raw materials. These costs are born by all of us -- every time we fill our gas tanks, for example. And as a nation, we lose our ability to make independent decisions that are in our best interest when we are dependent on foreign debt and foreign manufacturing. This is a classic externality.
I think you are spot on. If you can't provide the added value to warrent your pay then you should get out of the business. I completely agree with the entitlement comment, US companies sell products around the globe, but for some reason all the programming jobs should be located there or the company is selling out. This seems a strange leap of logic to me.
Besides which, if I ever go back to being a fulltime coder instead of management, I think I'll just outsource my job and spend my time 'working' remotely from the beach. Seriously take smart people look for the advantages, instaed of fighting the inevitable.
you got it all wrong.
I'd say outsource management, sales and "consulting" and keep the "lower ladder/cheaper" jobs that way companies save even more money.
I made my wealth off the back of outsourcing. Is it perfect? No. But I would argue that the sheer monetary savings far outweigh any shortfall.
Sure, sometimes the language/cultural barrier means I cannot work with a particular individual, so I don't. I move on and find someone more appropriate. Lesson learned.
However, from my own experience, I have found so many people whose technical skills blow mine (a former jobbing programmer of eight years) out of the water that they're worth persevering with. Such skilled workers are valuable, in any market. Yes, occasionally I will fly out and work with a programmer in person (with the help of an interpreter if need be) because the language barrier proves too difficult to resolve by email/IM - but the access to such skilled labour at such low cost is worth it.
Again, it's not perfect, but guess what? I've worked with plenty of incompetent and unreliable UK/US firms and individuals. Outsourced labour does not have a monopoly on substandard work!
I guess it depends on what position you're coming from. If you're an employee, I can understand an element of resentment and maybe looking down on outsourced labour. If you're an employer/entrepreneur, I believe the advantages are too great to ignore. Yes, you will come across a few duds but there are a lot of gems out there too.
Lame.
"Are my communication skills worth x times more money?" Wrong question. The correct question is, "Is the lack of communication skills significantly crippling of the time of the members of the corporation for the corporation to stay productive?"
"They're not in our office." See previous statement; when locales become communication barriers, you end up with communication breakdowns. This leads to bugs, missed deadlines, and a failure to maintain expectations and maintain proper accountability.
"'They're incompetent' - The notion that Indian or Chinese or Romanian programmers are less skilled than U.S. programmers is utterly laughable .... to suggest that the U.S. has a monopoly on hacker culture is absurd." Did you just say that? A hacker culture is not a competency measurement. A highly competent programmer is one who can understand the requirements of a task, who has high standards, and a sense of pride. The only reason why Indian programmers have a poor reputation is because their output has typically been notoriously bad, in the experiences of those of us who actually have worked with them. There are always exceptions, but those exceptions per "professional worker" are much rarer among the community of India than among the U.S. professional work force.
These said, "Embrace eagerness", "Make yourself valuable", "Study economics", "Think globally", "Help others", "Admit that you're already outsourcing" ......
.. I wholly agree with these.
i now outsource most of my data entry work to a company in india. they are the hardest, most dedicated workers i have ever had. (at a fraction of the cost)...the workers in india view this line of job as a career choice. however, all of the people i hired locally in los angeles uses my business as a pit stop while they're "in between jobs"...my turnover was high & quality suffered.
now i'm trying to think up a new business to launch using only outsourced labor. wish me luck.
Never outsourced programming before, but I'm highly motivated to try Romania after this article. Does anyone have any good contacts for Romanians?
Post a Comment