Comments on: India and Logistics http://netzooid.com/blog/2005/08/18/india-and-logistics/ gettin all zoidal on ya Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:48:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Robles http://netzooid.com/blog/2005/08/18/india-and-logistics/comment-page-1/#comment-48 Robles Mon, 22 Aug 2005 08:20:35 +0000 #comment-48 The whole outsourcing thing is the most lamely overrated trend since Pet Rock and Bell Bottoms. I've worked with companies that thought they were saving a ton of money by outsourcing to India, and guess what? They wound up having *higher* costs and lots more frustration. It's costly to set up the communications links and subcontracts with India, even more costly to train the Indian workers who (as you say) have a different educational and cultural background even if they do speak fluent English and French and Spanish or whatever. Plus, you need to hire *lawyers*, lots and lots of them to manage the overseas transactions which are insanely arcane. And there are also legal issues with info theft in India as some British newspaper pointed out months ago. Ultimately, though, while there are a lot of very good Indian workers, there are also quite a few guys out there who aren't terribly skilled at their jobs, do a crappy job with their programming and wind up costing the American firms even more in clean-up costs (while, of course, the costs of the Indain workers rise every day). The firms spend all this money on offshoring their programming, then wind up having to pay US programmers anyway to fix the problems! How stupid is that? You get what you pay for, and the US companies fantasizing about offshoring all their jobs are merely sacrificing quality for lower expenses. The whole outsourcing thing is the most lamely overrated trend since Pet Rock and Bell Bottoms. I’ve worked with companies that thought they were saving a ton of money by outsourcing to India, and guess what? They wound up having *higher* costs and lots more frustration. It’s costly to set up the communications links and subcontracts with India, even more costly to train the Indian workers who (as you say) have a different educational and cultural background even if they do speak fluent English and French and Spanish or whatever. Plus, you need to hire *lawyers*, lots and lots of them to manage the overseas transactions which are insanely arcane. And there are also legal issues with info theft in India as some British newspaper pointed out months ago.

Ultimately, though, while there are a lot of very good Indian workers, there are also quite a few guys out there who aren’t terribly skilled at their jobs, do a crappy job with their programming and wind up costing the American firms even more in clean-up costs (while, of course, the costs of the Indain workers rise every day). The firms spend all this money on offshoring their programming, then wind up having to pay US programmers anyway to fix the problems! How stupid is that? You get what you pay for, and the US companies fantasizing about offshoring all their jobs are merely sacrificing quality for lower expenses.

]]> By: Ian Holsman http://netzooid.com/blog/2005/08/18/india-and-logistics/comment-page-1/#comment-36 Ian Holsman Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-36 It will happen, but first you need to have a couple of things happen.<br /> <br /> The culture in India as I understand it is very different than that in the US and in other ‘western’ countries. Until this barrier is overcome you will not have the high level ‘innovation’ type jobs move over, as the role the outsources are taking are ‘doers’ not ‘thinkers’.<br /> <br /> The second is for the supply chain industry to leverage outsourcers in their own country. Is this happening? <br /> Do companies have enough trust in 3rd parties to handle such a strategic part of their business?<br /> <br /> The third point I see is the turning on a dime part. If you can define the job to a suitable level of detail, and make it so it doesn’t change very often, then it will be outsourced, otherwise it will be too hard. Video’s are fine, but timezones suck. It will happen, but first you need to have a couple of things happen.

The culture in India as I understand it is very different than that in the US and in other ‘western’ countries. Until this barrier is overcome you will not have the high level ‘innovation’ type jobs move over, as the role the outsources are taking are ‘doers’ not ‘thinkers’.

The second is for the supply chain industry to leverage outsourcers in their own country. Is this happening?
Do companies have enough trust in 3rd parties to handle such a strategic part of their business?

The third point I see is the turning on a dime part. If you can define the job to a suitable level of detail, and make it so it doesn’t change very often, then it will be outsourced, otherwise it will be too hard. Video’s are fine, but timezones suck.

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