Readers Debate Offshoring Management - ' More Pro, More Con '
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Subject: Con
While as Sr. Manager for a pharmaceutical company, I too am a victim of self interest and against seeing my job (let alone anyone else's) sent overseas.
That being said, I wonder where project managers or project leaders fall? Are they under management? I would think since management gives them a fair degree of autonomy implementing the project and last time I checked, project managers were not cheap. I say outsource the project leaders/managers ... all they do is ask questions ... hell I could do that.
Besides, everyone knows that it is the business/client side that dictates the success or failure of projects—not IT. Bad requirements, inbalanced participation, varied levels of interest add an incredible cost to any technical solution. How having people/teams 5,000 miles away is going to reduce this element is beyond my reasoning ...
Thank you for the opportunity to write. I am excited to see the overall results.
William Kerilla
wkerilla@comcast.net
Subject: Con
Reasons presented in the Article for offshoring management are distractions. They mostly relate to incompetence in management, whether onshore or offshore. Solution: insist on competent management (or development) wherever it's located.
Today, effective leaders are neither onshore nor offshore. They must be globally effective, regardless of location. Part of being effective—delivering results—involves finding low cost, competent resources, again wherever they exist.
The work of managers interacting with their customers and other constituents face to face is probably more critical than programmers interacting with users.
The cost savings of offshoring one senior executive position is certainly higher than one developer. But, obviously there are many more developers than CIOs.
Dennis J. Crane
President, Business Navigation Group
djcrane@biznavgroup.com
Subject: Con
Offshoring management alone can't possibly work any better than offshoring developers or "line staff," since the crossing of time zones, languages, cultures, etc. would remain as one of the most important limitations to offshoring effectiveness.
Despite what anyone might claim, in order for offshoring to be successful it not only must be commodity work, but it must be work which does not require significant management relationships across the culture/language border.
That is, you'd have to offshore both the call center line workers and their managers all the way up to the level at which there doesn't have to be substantial daily communication with the U.S. home office.
In other words, it's not that the work must be commodity work, it's that the unit of work, including whatever management is necessary, must be a commodity as a unit.
Daniel Billingsley
boaterdan@yahoo.com
Subject: Pro
It is about time that someone came up with this solution. I will give one example of how this is much better than what has been happening in the IT workforce:
For each $250,000 executive that you send overseas, you can keep or re-hire five good and experienced support people that are actually local and that you can understand when you need help to get back up and running. Better support means happier customers and that equals money.
Aaron Fadeley
Aaron@reddyelectric.com
Click here to read Angus' original column, The First Thing We Do, Let's Offshore the Managers. Click here to read his most recent column, picking the best of the letters denouncing or supporting the proposition.
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