Outsourcing

Outsourcing. To some a magical word opening a world of opportunities; efficiency, cost reduction, agility and more. To others it is a signal of doom and gloom, a sign of all things negative. So which is it? Of course it depends on your perspective.

To the corporate it makes perfect sense; reduce costs while increasing agility and delivery capacity - heaven on earth. To the guy sitting at the next desk it makes no sense; invest money in training up some guy half way across the world to do his job when there are already skilled and talented individuals doing it already. All to save a few dollars!

The problem (in my humble opinion) is that there generally has never been reason for the software developer or tester to ever think outsourcing would benefit them. Why should they? From their perspective it's often job losses to the other side of the world. Of course this isn't always the case. Several companies outsource and do it well. While their strategy I'm sure is a complex web of various technical, management and human resource strategies the one they do or should do (in my humble opinion) is get their employees on board. Give the employees a reason to make outsourcing work. Why do you need the employees if you are outsourcing their jobs?

The reality is that while the majority of the work (in extreme cases) may be outsourced, every organisation still needs people on the ground at their locations liaising with clients, coordinating activites and presenting the company the outside world. The outsourcing itself should be seamless. And for this seamlessness to occur you need the employees at the client locale to buy-in to the corporate strategy. After all outsourcing doesn't mean (and never has) that all jobs or positions get pushed overseas - though that always seems to be the conotation.

There is no denying that there may be job losses but at the same time it offers opportunities - those that do remain in the organisation may take on more client-facing/lead roles (in effect moving up the management/corporate ladder). And while any true IT geek (professional I mean...) wouldn't admit this, none of them would deny that this is the ladder they would like to traverse - after all the climb means a pay increase at the least. These are the opportunities that corporations need to present to their employees - it allows the guy at the other end to realise that he has a vested interest (by seeing what opportunity it brings him) and not only will he cooperate and he may even go out of his way to make it all work.

Golden rule of Outsourcing 1: Get everyone on board