When I worked at fidelity we were at forefront of off shoring. We set up shops in India mostly but also other regions. We spent A LOT of money to set up shop overseas but it was the thing to do as you could get 3 Indians for the price of one American. The problems started right away (issue #1) with what work to send there. You couldnt just up and lay off your skilled workers in America for Indians that dont know the job. The decision was make to categorize red work (low level) and blue work (high level).
So now we have our Indian operations groups doing all the red work and American force doing the blue work.
Issue #2 the time zone challenge - things started taking 2x longer to resolve with the opposite schedules. American employee sends operations work to Indian employee then back (lose half a day in the transfer on both ends and thats IF it doesn't need to go back for further work). Customer service was staring to suffer. Now we need a beefed up quality assurance group and 24hour operations management to bridge the gap. $$$$
OK so service is back up to par a year latter. UH OHH. issue #3. The Indians want raises and promotions? WHAT? they are not supposed to want that. They are supposed to be happy making 20k a year doing data entry the rest of there lives. WHAT? they have other opportunities because every American company sets up shop in the same cities? FUCK
Issue #4: Brilliant management thinking 3 for price of 1 deal.. Monkey cost analyst like me says wait thats not all in cost. You have fixed and variable costs associated with each group. Lets to Activity based costing to see what real cost is.. DARN MATH.. now its only 2 Indians for price of 1 American and thats not including start up costs.
It was a cluster fuck from the start, and it will continue to be a cluster fuck till companies finally nix this rediculous trend. Mark the words of someone who saw it first hand and a few different companies.
Oh here is the artical:
China outsourcing: Cheap no more
11:29am: U.S. companies are facing soaring costs in a region that used to be the home of cheap, overseas production. Here's why. more
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/11/smallbusiness/china_no_longer_cheap.fsb/index.htm
So now we have our Indian operations groups doing all the red work and American force doing the blue work.
Issue #2 the time zone challenge - things started taking 2x longer to resolve with the opposite schedules. American employee sends operations work to Indian employee then back (lose half a day in the transfer on both ends and thats IF it doesn't need to go back for further work). Customer service was staring to suffer. Now we need a beefed up quality assurance group and 24hour operations management to bridge the gap. $$$$
OK so service is back up to par a year latter. UH OHH. issue #3. The Indians want raises and promotions? WHAT? they are not supposed to want that. They are supposed to be happy making 20k a year doing data entry the rest of there lives. WHAT? they have other opportunities because every American company sets up shop in the same cities? FUCK
Issue #4: Brilliant management thinking 3 for price of 1 deal.. Monkey cost analyst like me says wait thats not all in cost. You have fixed and variable costs associated with each group. Lets to Activity based costing to see what real cost is.. DARN MATH.. now its only 2 Indians for price of 1 American and thats not including start up costs.
It was a cluster fuck from the start, and it will continue to be a cluster fuck till companies finally nix this rediculous trend. Mark the words of someone who saw it first hand and a few different companies.
Oh here is the artical:
China outsourcing: Cheap no more
11:29am: U.S. companies are facing soaring costs in a region that used to be the home of cheap, overseas production. Here's why. more
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/11/smallbusiness/china_no_longer_cheap.fsb/index.htm
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