Offshore at our peril

Article in USA Today on Outsourcing

This opinion was written in response to an article that was placed in USA Today, a newspaper here in the USA. In summary the writer of the article pointed to economics and to some very old economic theories as to why the software outsourcing that is current was a good thing. I, as you will note, have an other opinion. But then this is my column!

My rejoinder

Interestingly flawed view of how things work! (in the USA Today article linked to, but then that's a journalist for you.)

If it were merely an economic glue that held us all together, then Britain, France and Germany would have been hugging each other in 1914-1918 and then having lots of little baby showers 1939-1945. However, economic bedfellows have rarely been permanent friends.

I think my issue is not with India, China or some other part of the world that is being given our jobs, but with the idiocy, the moronic thinking, coming from the MBA's that seem to think that by sending our lower level skilled technical jobs away we will save money and magically allow the rest of us to get on with the creation and generation of new products for the future. These people fail to realise that the skills that a person is engendered with in the IT industry are not those learned in school, they are not taught from text books, they cannot be handed to you. They are skills that take years to build, based on the experience of solving problems over a long period of time, and because the problems that need to be solved are so very complex. This complexity cannot be fathomed in one sitting, the complexity, and the solutions we generate to conquer the complexity, are fairly long time base issues. It may take a person years to command the skills needed to approach a complete problem. Get rid of today's junior programmers and you are dispensing with tomorrows innovators and industry champions. Hand the skills needed to evolve industry to another country - not just hand over the skills, purge the skills from your own market place - and you will reap a pretty sour harvest.

Software is expensive to write because it is hard to write. In India and China wages for people that do software are climbing rapidly. Demand for good software people in any country is high, supply is universally low. People that write good software are just not that common.

In America, anyone can be a business person. It's far harder to be a software person.

The mismanagement of business has lead to the destabilization of our economy. While we can definitely see that cost cutting, laying off thousands, and outsourcing can generate a climate for short term efficiency improvements, it does nothing for the long term ability to create innovative products and services. Without innovation of product, all the messing with the process of building product is for naught.

I feel that the misunderstanding with what is happening in IT today revolves around the issue of how software comes into being. Business people feel that it should be like anything else, right there on the shelf. Unfortunately for them, they keep finding that it is instead like getting Michelangelo in to paint the Sistine chapel every time they want an update to any system. It's all art work, it's all brain power. The business guys are always wanting something quicker than it can be delivered, not understanding that the problems they are asking to be solved are generally insurmountable, because they don't have an appreciation of how their business works at the micro level. Their bold visions are based on flawed premise.

Today's modern executive didn't enter as an apprentice, didn't come up from the mailroom. They got their MBA and avoided all the inconvenience of actually learning the business, went straight to the top based not on their skills in their chosen industry but by the quality of the cloth in their suits. These people, now 20 years on from Wharton and Harvard, are running industry, still not understanding a thing about what they are doing. They wish to take us on that same ride. Boy! Its a good roller coaster ride when you can't tell which way the car is going to go! But who the heck cares when the golden parachute clause guarantees an instant fortune!

Until sense or poverty comes to the Executive we will face a hard time.