morgankohl wrote:Completely off topic, but what are some thoughts on out-sourcing? I'm asking this while I'm dealing with our computer help desk that recently moved to India and put a couple hundred people in Memphis out of work.

Woot should consider it so they can lower the price on still overpriced refurbs!!

AZGman wrote:For the customer or your company?

Customers. We're a computer support company--we take over support for applications, hardware, etc. If the client wants their phone support to route through India, we do that. Otherwise, it's handled by on-site teams or call-support sites here in the states. All the support for our applications is in-house or vendor.

Mavyn wrote:Customers. We're a computer support company--we take over support for applications, hardware, etc. If the client wants their phone support to route through India, we do that. Otherwise, it's handled by on-site teams or call-support sites here in the states. All the support for our applications is in-house or vendor.

Makes me wonder how it affected company costs.

Mavyn wrote:Wrong...you were inquizzed. You chose not to answer most of it. :p

You have me at a disadvantage. I could not find that particular thread/post.

AZGman wrote:Woot should consider it so they can lower the price on still overpriced refurbs!!

I'd prefer my job not be outsourced. :/

AZGman wrote:Makes me wonder how it affected company costs.

My understanding is that off-shoring support didn't save money. That's based on what the CEO of my company said, and what my SO saw at his company. The support costs didn't reduce significantly, and the time spent on issues didn't decrease. So, no net benefit.

inkycatz wrote:I'd prefer my job not be outsourced. :/

Well if Mavyn is right, no worries.

edit: and if right, why does anyone off-shore tech support?

AZGman wrote:Well if Mavyn is right, no worries.

edit: and if right, why does anyone off-shore tech support?

The perception was the costs would be lower because the hourly wages were lower, health costs were lower, etc. But the extra infrastructure needed eats up that cost, the training needs are tremendous, and...surprise, surprise, the support often times isn't competitive. If it takes 5 hours for them to resolve what someone on-site can handle in 5 minutes, the cost savings on hourly wage vanishes.

But it took a few years of experimenting and trying to make it work for that to really show. There are exceptions, and some kinds of support that CAN be off-shored at a savings. Some kinds, not so much.

j5 wrote:You have me at a disadvantage. I could not find that particular thread/post.

Hmmm, still no answers.

AZGman wrote:Well if Mavyn is right, no worries.

edit: and if right, why does anyone off-shore tech support?

because at one time it was cheaper to outsource jobs.

In fact, it is still cheaper for some things. i.e. cars, shoes

When outsourcing first started, people in India would work for almost anything and a lot of them were just smart enough to do the job. Now people from India are moving here to take higher paying jobs and the people that are still in India can demand higher pay because they know their value.

Obviously it's not the only reason outsourcing has slowed down, but it is a reason.

cruzer wrote:because at one time it was cheaper to outsource jobs.

In fact, it is still cheaper for some things. i.e. cars, shoes

When outsourcing first started, people in India would work for almost anything and a lot of them were just smart enough to do the job. Now people from India are moving here to take higher paying jobs and the people that are still in India can demand higher pay because they know their value.

Obviously it's not the only reason outsourcing has slowed down, but it is a reason.

Yeah, I know; it was more of a rhetorical question.

Nice to see ya out and about!

I can understand outsourcing to some extent, and generally if I am calling some kind of support in non-business hours I expect to get India or the Phillipines. However, I think that even if they did save some $$, the $$ they lose due to pissed off customers can easily offset that.

Every company I've worked at since the 90's has used Infosys in some form or fashion. Be it to work on software from India, or to have their employees at our company.

AZGman wrote:Yeah, I know; it was more of a rhetorical question.

Nice to see ya out and about!

You have a weird sense of "being out."



I'm bored is mostly what it comes down to.

Haven't missed ^^^^^^^ that.

ThunderThighs wrote:

Thread killer!!! ^^^

pooflady wrote:Thread killer!!! ^^^

Yeah she is.

She's a woot pimp too.

cruzer wrote:Yeah she is.

She's a woot pimp too.

Goes without saying.

pooflady wrote:Goes without saying.

I suppose.

cruzer wrote:I suppose.

Missed the Burgandy Olfactory Center Didn't have the siren turned on.

Hey Cruzer! Long time, no see!

Somehow managed to slog through the servers and get a bag! Now comes the hard part -- sneaking it into the house after the wife already is complaining about too much random junk from past bags.

Turken wrote:Hey Cruzer! Long time, no see!

Somehow managed to slog through the servers and get a bag! Now comes the hard part -- sneaking it into the house after the wife already is complaining about too much random junk from past bags.

Howdy.

I wasn't paying attention and wasn't really interested anyway. Maybe for Christmas or something.

Turken wrote:Hey Cruzer! Long time, no see!

Somehow managed to slog through the servers and get a bag! Now comes the hard part -- sneaking it into the house after the wife already is complaining about too much random junk from past bags.

Good luck with that.

Turken wrote:Hey Cruzer! Long time, no see!

Somehow managed to slog through the servers and get a bag! Now comes the hard part -- sneaking it into the house after the wife already is complaining about too much random junk from past bags.

I was at work and missed it, Orc was picking up Ver2 and 3 at the preschool so he missed it too, no biggie, although I use some of my Burgandy Olfactory Center stuff, like the snowman I mentioned yesterday.

Turken - you could send it to my house , but this time make sure you put a return address on it so you can get a Thank You card!

Outsourcing is a mixed bag to me. If we are doing it to offer high skill jobs to areas that didn't previously have them, that's great. If we are doing it for cheap labor and to avoid following the labor laws of more developed nations, that's not ok - in my book.

Since most people I know IRL work in some form of IT capacity (or trained to and were never able to find a job thanks to that little thing back 10 years ago with dot.coms), it is always hard for me to hear of people losing a corporate support gig to phone support in another country. I even have friends that lost custom software development to out-sourcing to countries where their corporation didn't even have a physical presence (it's different to lose a job to the guy at the Italy, Taiwan, Korean facility who works for the same company as you with writing code for the same processes and machines.) I know some of those jobs have started to come back as soon as 6 months after they've dissolved because it just didn't work to not have those guys onsite.

KtCallista wrote:Turken - you could send it to my house , but this time make sure you put a return address on it so you can get a Thank You card!

It's going to take quite a bit of willpower, but assuming it arrives before Christmas I think I'm going to wrap it up --unopened -- as my entry into the family gift exchange.

And I'm glad to hear the card made it. Although a thank-you for a thank-you would be almost a bit too much, no?

dontwantaname wrote:Totally missed the bag, which is much better than getting locked out.

Got the orange monkey. So I guess I'm set.

did you get the purple one too?

Turken wrote:It's going to take quite a bit of willpower, but assuming it arrives before Christmas I think I'm going to wrap it up --unopened -- as my entry into the family gift exchange.

And I'm glad to hear the card made it. Although a thank-you for a thank-you would be almost a bit too much, no?

Not when your Thank you included a gift Which we do appreciate, and your artwork!

pooflady wrote:In that case:

time zone: EST

approximate age: older than Mavyn younger than d'name

gender: M

married/single/divorced: M

credit card number: 86753095551212

general profession: IT

Another day bites the dusk; hey, hey.


g'night.

j5 wrote:

Thank you.

j5 wrote:
credit card number: 86753095551212

Jenny? Is that you?

What a yuck day. I just got off of an 11 hour shift and had to trudge through the rain to my second story apartment.

I just found out my sister is charging my niece $25 a week in rent. She's a senior in high school.

Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous?

morgankohl wrote:What a yuck day. I just got off of an 11 hour shift and had to trudge through the rain to my second story apartment.

That sounds awful. The only time I was out today was to go to the car to get the bag of cough drops that didn't make it into the house yesterday.

kdccrosby wrote:I just found out my sister is charging my niece $25 a week in rent. She's a senior in high school.

Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous?

No, you're not. I think it's ridiculous, too. So what would happen if niece refuses to pay it?