6 ms·

outsourcing has been going on for two decades, what's this so different other than more difficult to manage? big company will not find individual one by one, a

outsourcing has been going on for two decades, what's this so different other than more difficult to manage? big company will not find individual one by one, an employee overseas is hard to certify and might steal IP then disappear so there is more risk, language barrier, management challenging, time zone difference, not a total rosy picture for me. but yes for those really outstanding developers they will land a job with USA pay-scale easily, but will this turn into a trend for a global workforce(for ordinary developers) in a flat world remains to be seen.

joelbluminator 5y ago
You raise some good points about IP theft and credibility. It indeed makes things harder when wanting to recruit in 2nd world countries like India or Russia where rule of law is lacking.
randcraw 5y ago
Agreed. I work for a large US pharma. We tried outsourcing 10-15 years back and learned two things: 1) you will lose IP by the bucketsful if you outsource to certain countries, and 2) you will have a tough time retaining any kind of institutional memory from outsourcers since their staff moves around onto tasks for other companies or change jobs too fast to even build basic memory of your company's needs or infrastructure. In the end, we opened offices of our own in less expensive parts pf the US and the world where wages were lower. But since then, wages have risen substantially in several of those sites, making even this strategy largely pointless. Not to mention other challenges like distributing workgroups and communications across 5 time zones, some of which are 12 hours apart from our HQ. I'm not sure where we go next, since outsourcing and out-officing have both failed to live up to expectations. Regardless, I don't see remote work as solving these problems. Unless those wages are dirt cheap, remoting more staff will only make our past problems worse.
- brokencode 5y ago
  Is this large US pharma ludicrously profitable like many pharmaceutical companies? Why can’t they just hire employees closer to home base and pay them a better salary?

joelbluminator 5y ago

You raise some good points about IP theft and credibility. It indeed makes things harder when wanting to recruit in 2nd world countries like India or Russia where rule of law is lacking.

randcraw 5y ago

Agreed. I work for a large US pharma. We tried outsourcing 10-15 years back and learned two things: 1) you will lose IP by the bucketsful if you outsource to certain countries, and 2) you will have a tough time retaining any kind of institutional memory from outsourcers since their staff moves around onto tasks for other companies or change jobs too fast to even build basic memory of your company's needs or infrastructure. In the end, we opened offices of our own in less expensive parts pf the US and the world where wages were lower. But since then, wages have risen substantially in several of those sites, making even this strategy largely pointless. Not to mention other challenges like distributing workgroups and communications across 5 time zones, some of which are 12 hours apart from our HQ. I'm not sure where we go next, since outsourcing and out-officing have both failed to live up to expectations. Regardless, I don't see remote work as solving these problems. Unless those wages are dirt cheap, remoting more staff will only make our past problems worse.

brokencode 5y ago
Is this large US pharma ludicrously profitable like many pharmaceutical companies? Why can’t they just hire employees closer to home base and pay them a better salary?