This year, we have received a number of emails and phone calls from people who are asking us to send work to India. They claim that we can save a lot of money by sending it there, but is it true?
The fact is that hourly rates in India are much lower than hourly rates for program-mers here; however, that does not mean that you will save money by exporting work. Work that is well defined can be sent half way around the world. Work that is not well defined must remain closer.
We have had experience with work being sent out that was not really well defined. For example, one company was sending out work for the first time and they wanted to have software duplicated for a new environment. The current software was developed over a long time in house. Full documentation of what all that software really does was not available. So, the management drew up a Request For Proposal which covered most of the main points but missed a number of points. They could not include all the points because upper management didn't know them.
The results of the outsourcing was software that did not have many of the features that the old software had. That left the users and the outside developers in a difficult situation.
In such a case, the users have to make do with less than satisfactory software or the developer has to do a lot more development. What happens depends on whether management is more interested in getting the full job done or in keeping the costs in line.
When the project is not well defined, the only way the users will be satisfied will be by having a person on site who can find out what needs to be done and can make the software do what they want. That person can not be in India. Also, that person must understand both what is needed and how to get it done.
A similar case can be made for assistance desks. Some companies are trying to put the technical desk over in India. Early results are not comforting. While it is possible to have people working a night shift on the other side of the planet, answering support calls from here, the cultural differences are noticeable.
The initial reports, from the companies that try this, are that the only thing being helped is the cost—the people calling for help are not getting the help they need. Shared written language does not mean that phone conversations communicate.
In short, technical stuff that can be well defined and written down can be sent overseas. Where the written definition does not exist, the project should remain here. Determining what to do is something that a trained observer can only do while working closely with the potential users.
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