13 replies to this topic

[Noobeedoo]

What do you think about outsourcing ?
What's your opinion ?

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[malcom]

If that means people leaving their country, to get work somewhere else, that is common thing these days, and I'm not very pleased with it, but I believe it's unfortunatelly so necessary it cannot be stopped. It will spread, even more, because of recession, I think.

And if that means producing things in other countries, just to make profit, that also is also kind of exploatation, of that workers, if we let's say talk about things
produced in China, for America.

I hope I got it right what outsorcing is and expressed my opinion properly.
If I was mistaken, sorry. You'd have to explain further. But for what I know about it, that's it.

[Noobeedoo]

That's okay Malcom.. and your opinion counts..

[Jonathan J]

Sometimes it can be okay, sometimes not so good from the customers perspective. Take for example with "Virgin Media" (My broadband provider), they outsource to companies in India, in call centres and sometimes when I phone them up, I get routed to these call centres.

The thing that is horrible about this is that these outsourced call centres, have no 'real' power, and to phone Virgin Media you are on a premium line - so once you are done talking with them, and find out they can't solve your issue they'll then route you back to a call centre in the UK, while precious minutes of your money is being taken away. Plus it's also horrible due to the lack of understanding of english, or their accent makes it hard to hear these people; yet more time wasted on a premium line.

TBH for bigger companies I don't think they should outsource, as they have the money to directly fund call centres in their own countries, instead they'll go half assed and choose the cheaper option so they make more profits. - But then they'll see they will get more negative reviews and people will turn away from using their service. It's a big problem outsourcing, as for example in the UK there are a low number of jobs and outsourcing call centres to other countries isn't exactly helping the UK economy... to which it should, as you have people from the UK purchasing from that company. So I don't think it is fair on the economy of the UK, nor to the customers who pay premiums to only be given cheap support from outsourced companies abroad.

To expand on the economic problem it causes is that UK money from UK citizens who payout to Virgin Media's broadband goes to other countries, where if it weren't outsourced, the money would just go back into the country; which is good for the economy.

Though outsourcing is not ALWAYS bad, it's just how things are managed in my personal opinion the way Virgin Media have setup their "calling schemes" is a ripoff just to earn even more money from you; when their service has gone wrong and where their service is at fault. It's like bitch slapping you in the face really.

/end rant

But then again you have the think of the company, if the company can't afford it's own call centre, then outsourcing is a viable option as any communication is better than none; imho. But I personally hate it and why do I hate it? Well first, you are only outsourcing because it's cheap to do it that way, but that doesn't always reflect quality going the cheap way; which is why so many companies have problems.

[Shikhir A]

For my hosting company we outsource and we do in-house as well. We have so many clients that it's really hard to pay people $10 an hour from the US or UK; so we hire some outsourcing companies to work for us. They are all RedHat Linux Certified so I think it's pretty good, and since we don't do phone support and their grammar is pretty good, it's not a bad deal especially with the low price (under a thousand ).

[Jonathan J]

That kind of outsourcing I don't mind as long as they are decent that is fine.

[River B]

Jonathan, your story reminds me of when I called Mercurynet (my ISP) for support. They routed us to india and the guy was like:
Ferst, deed yu chack thh kkat5 cabal?

I couldn't understand a word he was saying and I kept asking him to repeat what he was saying (He could not speak english that well and pronouced the words very awkwardly.) He got pretty frustrated at me and said something like he'd forward my call. About 5 minutes of hangtime, I got redirected to a US girl whom seemed like she came to work right after her period. We got the issue fixed, but the support was horrible.

[coldspag]

the only experience i had with an overseas call center was when i called Microsoft for support...i called their local support office which is toll free then after i stated my problem the girl said she will forward me to the technical support and i had no idea, as i was not informed, it will be in china and i will be charged for that overseas call which lasted an hour because i couldn't understand most of what the tech agent was saying...and the only solution he came up was the one i suggested to him

i was surprised when my phone bill came...i never should've called them and fixed the problem myself...entirely my fault

[kunti]

Outsourcing in my country is organization for agency for job seeker



n i need a job now hehe

[Project10k.com]

I worked for a company that brought in Contractors overseas from India to America to work for 11 months. Their policy was that contractors could not work longer than 12 months without being considered for full time employment. With that said, 11 months into the contract, each contractor was terminated and subsequently sent back to India. Vicious cycle if you ask me....

[saji]

I think it's good in the long run because we can all share our cultures and cherry pick the best ideals.

In the short term, I think out sourcing is a stabilizing factor for the uncontrolled fiat currency system. It'll hopefully buy us some time to fix/build a new system.

Obviously, people suffering the death phase of any exponentially growing system is bound to find a million reasons to blame unrelated things, knowledgeable people are wiser. That is why the negotiating table was never the focus as it is today.

Take for example, the recent finding of substantial amount of water ice on the moon. Nasa instruments abroad the Indian Chandrayaan mission to the moon found these deposits. I'm sure there's much more like this to come in the future. But obviously, there's going to be some teething problems initially but I think that's just that. That I believe is the power of international co-operation.

Think of where we'd be had successive western governments not struggled miserably with the outdated imperialistic ideals. We'd all be zooming around in Mars or hooked up to the Matrix already! I think more of the online generation should take interest in politics and the inherent ideals of fairness and patience that permeate the online world should be transplanted to the real world.

I'm Indian. I believe that we have a lot to learn from each other and from the rest of the world.

I'm sure this will sound a bit refractory and apologetic. But let me just say that we've starved for 200+ years and it's not really anything substantial to forgo some peanuts after all these years.

Jonathan J, on 21 March 2009 - 02:49 PM, said:

It's a big problem outsourcing, as for example in the UK there are a low number of jobs and outsourcing call centres to other countries isn't exactly helping the UK economy... to which it should, as you have people from the UK purchasing from that company. So I don't think it is fair on the economy of the UK, nor to the customers who pay premiums to only be given cheap support from outsourced companies abroad.

To expand on the economic problem it causes is that UK money from UK citizens who payout to Virgin Media's broadband goes to other countries, where if it weren't outsourced, the money would just go back into the country; which is good for the economy.

This is a indeed a mistaken view. As modern money is only an empty promise. It's only as valuable as the ability of the issuing authority (mostly private banks) to repay the amount. Which sadly as the system would have it is impossible. Only a minute fraction of these promises are backed by services or assets. If these foreign countries such as India and china did not accept this fiat money, there'd be collapse and chaos and war because people would become desperate and go berserk. And nobody wants that.

Even after all this, the bankers still cannot keep pushing. Because it's like a heroin addiction in the macro scale.

At least, this is what I think I understand.

[cpt-bbb]

You can look at this from the business, corporate aspect - more profits, less costs. That's all.

Or you can look at it from the fact that:
- there's less jobs for your own country. Especially when there's a shortage of jobs already, sure it's great that outsourcing saves money and in a way reduces the price of goods and services, but when you are unemployed, why does that matter?
- the reason for outsourcing is it's cheaper. Cheaper means the poor people who can't speak english very well and we don't tend to get on well with as they don't have the ability to make real decisions, nor the knowledge to fix the majority of problems, get paid hardly anything. There's not a huge difference between people in countries where the work is outsourced to, and countries like US, UK, etc, the people are still able to work just as hard, but theres a massive difference in pay.

Not to mention your already frustrated and annoyed customers get further angered by people with no customer service skills. But when every company outsources, there's no reason to switch provider just because the support isn't good enough - as every companies support is the same.

Just my thoughts.  

[Patrick V]

Outsourcing has advantages and disadvantages. well cost will be low and be good for small busineses. In IT outsource happens a lot

[Antaros]

As far as the economic perspective of outsourcing goes, it is one of the greatest options businesses have. What few realize is that yes outsourcing to get cheaper labor means that certain people will be out of jobs in the short term, but this then opens up opportunities that they never would have encountered had they still been employed. You may think it would be logical to still be looking for a higher paying job while your currently employed but the fact is that most people don't and they become secure and comfortable with their financial stability and investment into that company. So the opportunity cost is that the same people that are working those jobs are actually hurting themselves by not escalating to better working standards. You might be saying, money is not every and that maybe you like the job you are in, but hey wouldn't you like a job that paid more and allowed you to work less hours and have more availability to do more; I am pretty sure the majority would.

Regarding the effects of outsourcing, yes people lose jobs or potential jobs but the fact is, is that to be honest it also provides more US and jobs globally in the long term, it may not be within the immediate future and that is why many think of outsourcing as bad. Think about it, because a company outsources it's customer relation IT department to per-say India and saves maybe three million on labor, what are they going to do with that money? Many say that CEO's and private share holders pocket the money, wrong. Competition drives companies to constantly reconstruct their approach to provide a more efficient and cost effective product; that is where the money goes. That three million could go towards technology or to hire higher skilled US labor (which is statistically the case according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics), and what do you know? Not only does the company get to expand but more people are employed! The skilled labor force of the United States is unparalleled to any country in terms of how technologically progressive our work force can adapt to changing trends, and the jobs being outsourced are jobs that even joe dirt off the street could do with minor training.

For instance many refer to sweat shops as a bad thing, but sewing shoes together well...ask yourself how smart you need to be to operate a sewing machine. Also if you look at it form an alternative prospective, jobs that are outsourced to developing countries such as for women born in the rural China, where they have no illicit rights and the only opportunity to gain independence and a chance to provide themselves a better life, is to move to the city. The city where outsourced US industries have moved, and statistically pay on excess to 2x better than local factories; the source of freedom and employment of thousands who previously would not of had equal opportunities presented.

To the rest of the nation, outsourcing is a god send. If the United States were to stop trading with outsourced companies, this would raise the production cost of all goods instrumentally; 94% of all clothing produced and worn by the American consumer is produced outside of the United States. So instead of paying $9.50 for a t-shirt, you'd be paying twice that due to American minimum wage and labor laws. When people complain about outsourcing they do not see the true effects that it has on the vast majority. The news only shows a select few of those who are affected by the short-term affects of outsourcing, and yet if we didn't have outsourcing America wouldn't be as efficient and productive as it is today. Think about how high prices would be without someone in China or Cambodia working for $2.50 an hour in comparison to the US $7.25, and how the outsourced job not only provides food for that worker, but also more money in your wallet at the end of the day.