Outsourcing to India: All that glitters, or even glisters, is not gold

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:21:40 -0500
From: PAUL JULIEN <p.julien () worldnet att net>
Subject: Outsourcing to India: All that glitters, or even glisters, is not gold
To: dave () farber net

Dave:

New take on the benefits of outsourcing of computer programming jobs to
India - a fragment from a BusinessWeek magazine article.  (I reformatted
into bullets.)

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2004/sb20040112_0920.htm

... One important lesson he had learned working in a large high-tech company
... was that the benefits of outsourcing of computer programming jobs, as
currently practiced by large corporations, are often exaggerated.

"There were too many headaches in dealing with India," he says, recalling
his experience overseeing such work.

a) "We often got spaghetti code that was functional, but couldn't grow.
b) We had no idea if delivery dates would be hit because they would freely
give promises, but not results.
c)  The time difference was very difficult.
d)  The explanation, 'They program while you sleep' doesn't hold water. Too
often, a problem would arise and they would respond the next day with,
'Well, we weren't sure what you wanted to do' -- and a whole day was lost,
time and again. Before long we were four months behind schedule.
d)  It was also very difficult to remotely manage a project unless you had a
very strong infrastructure over there of U.S.-style managers.
e)  Finally, the rising costs over there make it tougher to justify."   ...
(End of BusinessWeek excerpt.)


It's always best to GOTO Shakespeare in these situations:

... [He unlocks the golden casket.]
PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.

     'All that glisters is not gold,
     Often have you heard that told;
     Many a man his life hath sold
     But my outside to behold:
     Gilded tombs do worms infold.....'
ACT 2, The Merchant of Venice


Dave, we produce lots of nice spaghetti code right here in the U.S.A.,
that's not a problem
unique to India.  But most telling, I think, is point d), the management.
Having bright young
Indian kids cranking code for 5 bucks an hour is one thing, but maintaining
all the
simultaneous internal communications channels required for the management of
complex systems design and development projects is quite another.

Also, if " They program while you sleep", then aren't they home sleeping
when you're programming and you want to talk to them?  Oh, I see, we use
e-mail and voice mail, OK.  Yeah, you know, that's my problem, I'm not
getting enough e-mail and voice mail, I need some more.

Also, what do the Indian project workers do on Monday in India?  During the
day there on Monday, it's late Sunday eve - wee hour Monday morning in New
York.
Do they work from Friday's instructions?  When are Friday's instructions
given to them?  Arriving in the New York office at 9am on a Friday morning
we notice it is 730pm Friday evening in India.  Do they hang around in New
Delhi on Friday evening-after midnight Sat morning, waiting to get the
instructions for the work they will perform on Monday, or do they just come
in cold on Monday morning and collect the messages?  At 9am Monday morning
India it is 1030pm Sunday NY.  So India can't call anybody in NY at that
time.  Hope those instructions are perfect.  Hey, what's the long-distance
phone bill on these India projects?

Now someone might say that the Indian contractor will just run a night shift
in India, solves all these problems.  But that's not what's advertised in
the pitch.  What's advertised is that they are programming while you are
home snoring, and the conclusion you are supposed to jump to is that this
somehow creates a new heretofore unavailable double-folding efficiency.

Let's examine this Thru-The-Looking-Glass work arrangement more closely.
Say that at noon on Monday I e-mail them a description of a task that I
believe to be a 1/2-day job.  They receive it 5 miliseconds later, but it
says 1030pm Monday on their clock, so they are not in the office (I assume).
They begin work on it at 9am Tues India  = 1030pm Mon NY.  They immediately
have
a simple question: do I want this new module to be constructed by modifying
a copy of OE1446, or use version 2 of OE907?  I blew it, I forgot to tell
them.  They have emailed me this question immediately because they are smart
enough
to know that they can't start work without this information.  My computer
receives this question with great efficiency and perfect accuracy 5
milliseconds later, at 1030pm Mon NY.  Funny thing, I'm not in the office.
I arrive in the office 9am Tues NY to find their message.  I immediately
e-mail them "Use OE1446."  They receive this instantly, at 730pm Tues India,
and no one is in their office.  They begin the task promptly the next
morning at 9am Wed India, and finish at 1:07pm Wed India (seven minutes for
lunch) = 2:37am Wed NY.  I find this finished result when I arrive at 9am
Wed NY.  So it took from noon Mon to 9am Wed = 45 hours wall clock to
complete a 4 hour task that had a single 30-second question?  How much does
that cost the U.S. operation?

Oh by the way, they have to bill you for Tuesday India.  See, you had them
stymied all day Tuesday waiting for an answer and they were unable to do
anything
else, and they have to be paid for their time.  They didn't dare go ahead
because the last time they did that and produced something ugly you screamed
at them "IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, COME AND ASK".  Don't sweat it - it's only
32 hours billable: 4 programmers  X  8 hours.  What?  It was going to take 4
big programmers to do the little 4 hour task?  No: 3 other programmers were
hung up because the 4 hour task question was not resolved, so they also
could not make forward progress on their tasks.

They must be licking their lips in India.


Paul Julien



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