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Offshore does not equal cheaper. Often what you think you save in salary, you spend in communication overheads.
by 6c696e7578 7y ago
Offshore does not equal cheaper. Often what you think you save in salary, you spend in communication overheads.
- balfirevic 7y agoWhat communication overhead, if you've already said you are in favor of telecommuting?
- Wildgoose 7y agoCommunicating across differences in language, culture and just simple local knowledge - in other words, considerable overhead.
- balfirevic 7y agoTrue for offshoring to (for example) India, but almost negligible for offshoring to many parts of Europe.
- imtringued 7y agoThere is still an accountability problem. It's very common for Indian IT contractors to tell you that they assign their best employees to your project and then in reality fill the seat with some intern or trainee that hasn't even finished his first project.
- devdas 7y agoSo don't use a contractor. Open an Indian office and hire people directly.
- 6c696e7578 7y agoI suppose what I'm arguing for is keeping onshore, but allowing people to telecommute. They all speak the same language and understanding. The company doesn't lose anything, probably saves a great deal in real estate and building insurance.
- icebraining 7y agoYeah, but why would they do that, if balfirevic is right (and I think he is)? Once everyone is telecommuting, the question becomes: do I want to pay a 50%-80% premium to get a native speaker, instead of someone who speaks it quite well and might have even worked previously in the UK?
- 6c696e7578 7y agoI don't know, but there is often quality of work comes into question. Businesses who look to offshore expect it to be cheap, they often find that cheap doesn't mean good. Good offshore may cost a similar amount to good onshore. Offshore may be be unsocial hours for local time. There's also often a cost of the business decision makers taking a jolly trip to the offshore location to see their offices (no idea why this is needed), if telecommuting doesn't work well enough to trust the remote office, why go there?