Ras Weigner is a happy man today. Bangalored two years back, Weigner clawed back into the IT world with the conviction of ousting offshore outsourcers. The 29 year old has now equipped himself with a business degree to supplement his IT skills and 5 years of experience. An analyst with the IT department of a large corporation, Weigner’s task is to offset the onslaught of offshore workers, especially their move beyond the IT department.
Weigner might be a sole warrior but he is certainly masterminding a disruption. The information technology industry is set to witness watershed events in the near future. As in every industry, disruption will shake up the hitherto stable and continuously growing phenomenon, offshore outsourcing. With the vast majority of companies involved in offshoring focused on initiatives primarily aimed at sustaining current business, mostly by venturing into new niches and markets, the impending threat of backward integration from the customer is overlooked.
A recent report in CIO.com stated a non-profit organization, involved in sending work offshore, now gearing up to compete with Indian offshorers in all spheres viz., cost, efficiency, responsiveness, productivity and quality. The said organization is reportedly targeting a CMMI level certification, which will enable it to showcase clearly the quality, responsiveness and productivity of the in-house IT department to the business heads, thereby offering enough parameters for comparisons with offshore outsourcers. What have they done? A project management team to coordinate all midsize and large development projects to improve on-time performance plus an architecture group to standardize systems and applications to reduce costs and increase productivity. In short, all that an offshore outsourcing firm offers.
Weigner might be a sole warrior but he is certainly masterminding a disruption. The information technology industry is set to witness watershed events in the near future. As in every industry, disruption will shake up the hitherto stable and continuously growing phenomenon, offshore outsourcing. With the vast majority of companies involved in offshoring focused on initiatives primarily aimed at sustaining current business, mostly by venturing into new niches and markets, the impending threat of backward integration from the customer is overlooked.
A recent report in CIO.com stated a non-profit organization, involved in sending work offshore, now gearing up to compete with Indian offshorers in all spheres viz., cost, efficiency, responsiveness, productivity and quality. The said organization is reportedly targeting a CMMI level certification, which will enable it to showcase clearly the quality, responsiveness and productivity of the in-house IT department to the business heads, thereby offering enough parameters for comparisons with offshore outsourcers. What have they done? A project management team to coordinate all midsize and large development projects to improve on-time performance plus an architecture group to standardize systems and applications to reduce costs and increase productivity. In short, all that an offshore outsourcing firm offers.
Businesses are now more aware of offshoring and its impact. With the market perhaps at a certain level of maturity, companies are emphasizing on managing outcomes than managing operations, they are stressing on realizing business value than cost. Makes perfect sense for IT professionals in India – well, who doesn’t want to move up the value chain? With IT getting closer to the business person (than the CIO/CTO), the need for professionals with business and technology acumen is increasingly becoming an imperative. And, a large chunk of the work will have to be executed onsite for want of thorough market knowledge and understanding of business processes. While the Indian companies are initiating this transition by leveraging the now established coding skills and entrenched relationship with customers, the CIOs on the other side are fortifying their department to compete with the offshorers.
CIOs are nurturing a new breed of programmers. These are teams proficient in dexterously troubleshooting information related inefficiencies in order to enable senior managers to substitute automated monitoring for direct control. Usually, such jobs are not outsourced and even if it is, IT department has the competitive advantage over outsourcers on costs (assuming work’s done by a local person onsite because the nature of work is such), know-how (how does it work internally? Consultants rarely know) and motivation (the passion to go the extra mile is absent).
By creating a set of standard methodologies across the organization to increase productivity, enhance delivery times and to improve quality coupled with a team equipped with analysis, design and collaboration capabilities, the CIOs have begun a new game. Reduced to mere implementers of air-tight projects, offshorers are precariously positioned and gradually will be gobbled up by organizations outsourcing.
Well, it isn’t cricket in the US anymore. Offshorers better learn baseball and American Football.
