5 ms·

Everytime I hear this I fail to see how it makes any sense. Either (1) All the firms hiring them are idiots and are unable to judge competency and continue fall

by ksk 8y ago

Everytime I hear this I fail to see how it makes any sense. Either (1) All the firms hiring them are idiots and are unable to judge competency and continue falling for the "scam" every year, year after year on every project, with every company. (2) Your propositions are incorrect. They do have good engineers and they do end up doing good work.

osrec 8y ago
They pick their targets very carefully. They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. They'll promise them the world at a fraction of the cost of competitors, and the business guys will present a healthy set of cost savings to their board. Once the customer is fully locked in, they will fail to deliver on a few of those promises. Then the excuses start. Then the timelines slip. Then, after many months of this charade, they might get fired. Then the customer might try another company. Then they go back to on-shoring their dev team. Basically, it's not (1) or (2), but instead (3): that these guys are master scammers, liars and confidence tricksters. They exaggerate without committing to anything and lull their customers into a false sense of security. They are THE slipperiest eels in the industry. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to give them a try just once - it will probably convince you.
- ksk 8y ago
  >They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. In that case any IT consultancy could fool those people. If a US consulting firm is chosen, how could anyone make the claim that they were chosen on merit? I know quite a few "business-focused" people. It is not so easy to fool them even if IT is not their core competency. Businesses typically will include several protection clauses in the contract and set the legal jurisdiction to their own country. I don't believe it is easy to fool businesses for years on end. They would go out of business pretty quickly. >They'll promise them the world at a fraction of the cost of competitors, and the business guys will present a healthy set of cost savings to their board. Once the customer is fully locked in, they will fail to deliver on a few of those promises. Then the excuses start. Then the timelines slip. Then, after many months of this charade, they might get fired. Then the customer might try another company. Then they go back to on-shoring their dev team. Then data would show that those firms have no long term contracts or repeat business from previous clients. Does it?
  - osrec 8y ago
    Every large organisation I've been in operates in silos, and these firms hide within these silos. Also, these firms have a bad reputation - everyone in banking knows it, yet they are still employed because they're cheap and let you add bodies to the shop floor when funding is squeezed. That makes managers look powerful with big empires, which helps getting promoted. So it's not all about code quality or productivity - sometimes it's just about looking like you're getting stuff done, before you leave and let someone else inherit the mess.
    - ksk 8y ago
      Okay, lets assume that this is happening. I would hope that the person harming their own business by willfully engaging with an incompetent third party is the one at fault here.
      - osrec 8y ago
        The thing is, it's not their business. They just show that they saved money and get promoted on to another role. The mess, when it becomes apparent, is for someone else to clean up...
        ksk 8y ago
        Okay then they are a dishonest toxic employee. The way to solve that is by trying to weed out such people in your hiring, and do due diligence on their previous employment record. I fail to see how that changes my conclusion.
        dahauns 8y ago
        This won't work, because those employees don't actually register as toxic for the company - au contraire: They have reached - and quite possibly exceeded - their predefined performance targets! They have done exactly what they were hired for. You have to realize that things like long-term quality, or even reducing total costs for the company (only the silo is important!) is not a performance target in this scenario, and that's the root of the problem. It's a systemic problem, a problem of corporate structure and incentives, and exactly the ecosystem where these kinds of contractors thrive.
- mindentropy 8y ago
  You are talking as if the firms that have outsourced are just some poor innocent sheep. Most of the firms that have outsourced only care about money. Again it is all about money and nothing else. Nobody cares about tech, or the product or anything. It is just finding a good deal to make money. I have seen enough people from management outsource the work and then jump ship and let the lowly tech handle the mess. It is the same in India. You get the hike and then jump to another company which pays better. If most of the firms that have outsourced have got really bad work from these big firms then why are they not suing for bad quality work? Why do they give bigger and bigger contracts? That shows the type of people in your management which you should take a hard look at before complaining about the quality of work of these big service companies. Source: I have been on both sides. I have seen the internals of them doing business and it is a freaking mess.

by ksk 8y ago

osrec 8y ago

They pick their targets very carefully. They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. They'll promise them the world at a fraction of the cost of competitors, and the business guys will present a healthy set of cost savings to their board. Once the customer is fully locked in, they will fail to deliver on a few of those promises. Then the excuses start. Then the timelines slip. Then, after many months of this charade, they might get fired. Then the customer might try another company. Then they go back to on-shoring their dev team. Basically, it's not (1) or (2), but instead (3): that these guys are master scammers, liars and confidence tricksters. They exaggerate without committing to anything and lull their customers into a false sense of security. They are THE slipperiest eels in the industry. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to give them a try just once - it will probably convince you.

ksk 8y ago
>They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. In that case any IT consultancy could fool those people. If a US consulting firm is chosen, how could anyone make the claim that they were chosen on merit? I know quite a few "business-focused" people. It is not so easy to fool them even if IT is not their core competency. Businesses typically will include several protection clauses in the contract and set the legal jurisdiction to their own country. I don't believe it is easy to fool businesses for years on end. They would go out of business pretty quickly. >They'll promise them the world at a fraction of the cost of competitors, and the business guys will present a healthy set of cost savings to their board. Once the customer is fully locked in, they will fail to deliver on a few of those promises. Then the excuses start. Then the timelines slip. Then, after many months of this charade, they might get fired. Then the customer might try another company. Then they go back to on-shoring their dev team. Then data would show that those firms have no long term contracts or repeat business from previous clients. Does it?
- osrec 8y ago
  Every large organisation I've been in operates in silos, and these firms hide within these silos. Also, these firms have a bad reputation - everyone in banking knows it, yet they are still employed because they're cheap and let you add bodies to the shop floor when funding is squeezed. That makes managers look powerful with big empires, which helps getting promoted. So it's not all about code quality or productivity - sometimes it's just about looking like you're getting stuff done, before you leave and let someone else inherit the mess.
  - ksk 8y ago
    Okay, lets assume that this is happening. I would hope that the person harming their own business by willfully engaging with an incompetent third party is the one at fault here.
    - osrec 8y ago
      The thing is, it's not their business. They just show that they saved money and get promoted on to another role. The mess, when it becomes apparent, is for someone else to clean up...
      - ksk 8y ago
        Okay then they are a dishonest toxic employee. The way to solve that is by trying to weed out such people in your hiring, and do due diligence on their previous employment record. I fail to see how that changes my conclusion.
        dahauns 8y ago
        This won't work, because those employees don't actually register as toxic for the company - au contraire: They have reached - and quite possibly exceeded - their predefined performance targets! They have done exactly what they were hired for. You have to realize that things like long-term quality, or even reducing total costs for the company (only the silo is important!) is not a performance target in this scenario, and that's the root of the problem. It's a systemic problem, a problem of corporate structure and incentives, and exactly the ecosystem where these kinds of contractors thrive.
mindentropy 8y ago
You are talking as if the firms that have outsourced are just some poor innocent sheep. Most of the firms that have outsourced only care about money. Again it is all about money and nothing else. Nobody cares about tech, or the product or anything. It is just finding a good deal to make money. I have seen enough people from management outsource the work and then jump ship and let the lowly tech handle the mess. It is the same in India. You get the hike and then jump to another company which pays better. If most of the firms that have outsourced have got really bad work from these big firms then why are they not suing for bad quality work? Why do they give bigger and bigger contracts? That shows the type of people in your management which you should take a hard look at before complaining about the quality of work of these big service companies. Source: I have been on both sides. I have seen the internals of them doing business and it is a freaking mess.