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US software companies can’t expect to get sustainable advantage by offshoring software development to cheaper countries. If a developer in Russia, India, or Chi
by netcan 17y ago
US software companies can’t expect to get sustainable advantage by offshoring software development to cheaper countries. If a developer in Russia, India, or China costs 50% as much as a developer in Seattle, San Francisco, or Boston, but software development is only 10% of your costs, you can only get a 5% advantage from offshoring development.
I assume he's talking about some specific class of company. Anyone know what it is?
- ordinaryman 17y agoFor whatever class of company, I am puzzled why is it wrong to assume marketing and sales cannot be outsourced. Marketing allows work to be done in flexible timings, for sales and support one will require employees to be awake at odd hours, specific to their customer's time zone. And, I have personally seen it being done successfully - not in an outsouring company, but in an India-based product company. I believe that as long as there is going to be considerable cost arbitrage to be taken advantage of, there will be outsourcing. Development / sales / marketing - anything that does not require direct visit to customer premises.
- dagw 17y agoFor marketing to be really effective it needs specialist knowledge of both field and geographic location. There are countless examples of marketing failures where people simply assume that what works in country A will work just as well in country B. I wouldn't trust a marketing firm halfway round the world to know what works and what doesn't in my home market.