Offshoring....

[Malice]

Well, here I sit.

It seems my group, Central Admin, which went thru one offshoring at the beginning of the year (which left 4 people here in Houston and had 3 people in Canada) is now going thru another.

There will be only 2 left here in Houston and 5 in Canada from what it seems.

This I have gathered from people I have talked to. Not even from the bosses yet. Amazing how when they are doing this, they dont bother to take the damn time to tell the rest of the group.

This is going to be great for me *sarcasm* This means I will have to pick up all the slack in Houston....

 

[Demon Within]

Well, here I sit.

It seems my group, Central Admin, which went thru one offshoring at the beginning of the year (which left 4 people here in Houston and had 3 people in Canada) is now going thru another.

There will be only 2 left here in Houston and 5 in Canada from what it seems.

This I have gathered from people I have talked to. Not even from the bosses yet. Amazing how when they are doing this, they dont bother to take the damn time to tell the rest of the group.

This is going to be great for me *sarcasm* This means I will have to pick up all the slack in Houston....

Im confused.

 

[AllThingsComic]

It sucks to be low man on the totem pole. It always seems to work out that the people who needed to be told are always the last to know.

 

[Erzengel]

How is Canada offshore?

 

[Malice]

Sending jobs to another location for lower prices, is Offshoring...
Some technically call Canada Nearshoring...

 

[Malice]

Im confused.

You dont work in IT do you?

 

[Demon Within]

Sending jobs to another location for lower prices, is Offshoring...
Some technically call Canada Nearshoring...

ohhh I see. You work with less then 5 people then? Are you a hitman or something?

 

[Demon Within]

You dont work in IT do you?

no but I thought about going to ITT tech one time.

 

[jaguarr]

Canada is considered "Near Shore", as is Mexico. It makes little sense to send work to Canada these days, though, because the exchange rate offers no advantages currently. The Candadian dollar is actually quite strong in comparison with the U.S. dollar right now. Even Mexico isn't that great anymore, which is why countries like Brazil and Costa Rica are the current Western Hemisphere outsourcing hotspots. India's losing it's traction and has maybe another 3-5 years left before the bubble bursts for them. China's taking their work away from them more and more every day.

I personally know of specific instances (can't say which companies, unfortunately) where they've outsourced work to India, who in turn outsourced it to China, who in turn outsourced it to Brazil, who in turn outsourced it to Mexico, who in turn outsourced it back to....yes....the United States. Too many companies got greedy about cost savings with outsourcing and started doing it with little to no proper contractual protection to prevent that from happening, nor did they have any sort of real strategy in place to determine what things they should be outsourcing. A lot of them have lost their core competencies and proprietary knowledge because they outsourced the wrong things and now they're completely at the mercy of these third-party suppliers to even stay in business.

The kind of crap Malice has had to deal with is exactly why I got out of the SysAdmin game and got into contract and supplier management.

jag

 

[Malice]

Offshoring is simply driven by cost.

Say you are in a group of 10 people, you each make $50,000 a year.
That is $500,000 a year in salary cost

How do you cut cost?
Well you can hire out a company elsewhere on the planet, India is the big place to go right now...
Lets say they pay them only $35,000 a year, that is $350,000 a huge $150,000 a year savings in cost.

That is what offshoring is.

 

[Demon Within]

Offshoring is simply driven by cost.

Say you are in a group of 10 people, you each make $50,000 a year.
That is $500,000 a year in salary cost

How do you cut cost?
Well you can hire out a company elsewhere on the planet, India is the big place to go right now...
Lets say they pay them only $35,000 a year, that is $350,000 a huge $150,000 a year savings in cost.

That is what offshoring is.

Maybe this is why I cant find a job anywhere

 

[Malice]

Well offshoring only applies to jobs that can be done remotely....help desks...phone answer locations...things like that.

If the job requires someone to physically be there...it cant be offshored...

 

[Alpha and Omega]

China's taking their work away from them more and more every day.

They certainly are the future.

I personally know of specific instances (can't say which companies, unfortunately) where they've outsourced work to India, who in turn outsourced it to China, who in turn outsourced it to Brazil, who in turn outsourced it to Mexico, who in turn outsourced it back to....yes....the United States.

Too many companies got greedy about cost savings with outsourcing and started doing it with little to no proper contractual protection to prevent that from happening, nor did they have any sort of real strategy in place to determine what things they should be outsourcing. A lot of them have lost their core competencies and proprietary knowledge because they outsourced the wrong things and now they're completely at the mercy of these third-party suppliers to even stay in business.

jag

Christ! What a way to self-implode. I really can't seem to grasp how a legitimate business could screw itself in such a way (where are the balances and checks), but you basically explained it, and my mind is still blown.

Oh well, maybe some of those 'third-party' suppliers are gracious, compassionate individuals who would never think of outrageously over-charging for their product.

[crickets chirping]

Didn't think so.

 

[Malice]

Its all driven by cost....for the most part, they care about nothing else...its business

 

[jaguarr]

Well offshoring only applies to jobs that can be done remotely....help desks...phone answer locations...things like that.

If the job requires someone to physically be there...it cant be offshored...

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that people thought could/would NEVER be offshored like full on application and product design, development and testing but...sure enough....a lot of companies have done just that. It doesn't make much sense to me, though. If I make widgets that are world famous for their world-class quality and leading edge design and featureset, and these widgets are the bread and butter of my company, why on earth would I want to dismantle the organization and people that have made them so innovative and successful in order to get rid of them and put it in the hands of a bunch of people halfway around the world without a proven track record (who will most likely take all my proprietary secrets and sell them off to someone else, anyway)? And yet, this has happened countless times with American companies. Pressure comes from too many sales, accounting and marketing pukes who have risen to CEO levels to cut costs and improve revenues with offshoring being the key to doing so rather than looking at true business process efficiencies and using the people they have in the most effective capacity, and these ridiculous timeframes to move work get developed so HUGE mistakes are made. I even know of companies that didn't protect their intellectual property contractually and now the company they outsourced it to has legal rights (in the U.S. AND in their own countries which operate under different sets of laws) to use or sell the intellectual property for themselves (and oh boy, do they).

It's like all of corporate America was being run by G. W. Bush, to be honest. Terrible fiscal and management decisions all in the name of lining the pockets of the higher ups and their stakeholders, longevity and stability of the company be damned. Many more of these people should be in jail for some of the things they have done.

jag

 

[Alpha and Omega]

Quick question about offshoring.

If American Jobs are taken overseas, are they still included in the ratio of employment/unemployment status for the entire country?

Ex: A co. sends 500 jobs over to India. Are those jobs still counted as American jobs because it's an American company? If so, doesn't that affect the authenticity of America's actual unemployment rate?

I've always wondered about that.

 

[Zaed]

Offshoring does suck.

I'm a network admin for a manufacturing company and in the time ive been here i've seen the workforce here reduced by 40% and moved to China. Thats about 200 families in my community of about 7,000 people affected. All so that they can pay somebody in China 65 cents an hour to do the work and save money.
I have nothing against the country of China or any of the Chinese people.
I just want to say it sucks that Americans have to lose their jobs to other people who work for 14x's less pay.

 

[Malice]

I doubt it.
Because its no longer an american job.

 

[jaguarr]

Quick question about offshoring.

If American Jobs are taken overseas, are they still included in the ratio of employment/unemployment status for the entire country?

Ex: A co. sends 500 jobs over to India. Are those jobs still counted as American jobs because it's an American company? If so, doesn't that affect the authenticity of America's actual unemployment rate?

I've always wondered about that.

Nope. They don't count as American jobs any longer. One of the big motivators for companies doing outsourcing of any kind is to reduce their headcount because people cost a lot of money and they can't be arsed to refine their business process and make things efficient (most American companies are horribly inefficient to the point that they bleed money). Sometimes they outsource to another American company (and the jobs stay U.S. based) and other times they outsource to an offshore or nearshore company (and the money doesn't stay in the U.S. and neither do the jobs).

jag

 

[Holly Goodhead]

I never understand Malices computer-y threads..

 

[Alpha and Omega]

Nope. They don't count as American jobs any longer.
jag

Thanks for the info.

What you stated earlier isn't really surprising, yet it still makes me shake my head, especially the part about restructuring companies that are currently successful. . . . . all in the name of increased revenue.

I don't understand why people wouldn't consider the long-term interest of an organization, but greedy people rarely reason.

 

[jaguarr]

Thanks for the info.

What you stated earlier isn't really surprising, yet it still makes me shake my head, especially the part about restructuring companies that are currently successful. . . . . all in the name of increased revenue.

I don't understand why people wouldn't consider the long-term interest of an organization, but greedy people rarely reason.

I can't claim to fully understand the reasoning. To me it's the Golden Goose syndrome. There's ALWAYS some a-hole who says "Screw feeding the damn thing and taking care of it and waiting for it to lay the golden eggs! I'm gonna cut the f**ker open and get all the eggs RIGHT NOW!"

jag

 

[War Lord]

Unfortunately, I think this will slowly eat at America's ability to provide for its citizens. As high tech jobs get offshored, it makes it difficult to get an education knowing that job might be offshored before you can graduate.

In turn, as people avoid the high expense of getting an education, it makes it difficult for companies to find people and might have to offshore to find somebody.

It's a bit of a vicious circle.

 

[jaguarr]

Unfortunately, I think this will slowly eat at America's ability to provide for its citizens. As high tech jobs get offshored, it makes it difficult to get an education knowing that job might be offshored before you can graduate.

In turn, as people avoid the high expense of getting an education, it makes it difficult for companies to find people and might have to offshore to find somebody.

It's a bit of a vicious circle.

What it does is create an entire workforce of piss-poor Program and Project managers with no real technical expertise. A dubious skillset in the world market-place.

jag