Why can't you offshore, outsource, or delegate and make software
someone else's problem? It's a wonderful sounding idea to
cost-concious managers. Make it like an assembly line, hire a few
people to manage it all, and send the rest of the work to where labor
is cheap. And with all the hype, eveyone has the impression that all
their counterparts are outsourcing left and right (regardless of the
truth of the matter), so "stay competitive" they must go along too.
There are lots of well known arguments against this; it's a craft,
on-site business is important, quality is hard to control, etc.. All
of these I think are true, but I ask you one thing....
Does it matter? Who cares?
The fact is that technology implementations generally
suck across the board. IT folk don't listen to their customers, can't
code, and make poor decisions. All factors that result in a crappy end
product. So from a manager's point of view, if you're going to get
crap, why not pay cut rate prices? Crap that costs half what another
pile of crap costs is twice as good, assuming constant crappiness. Not that they are making the decision on that level; it's just that they have no clue what technology is capable of when done right (witness the Google).
This is not all the fault of IT workers. Management's inability to
structure their organization to take advantage of technology leads to
a lot of these failures, but the result is the same; IT sucks just
about everywhere.
If companies can't figure out how to leverage a competitive advantage
out of skilled, in-house IT workers, then they might as well outsource
it and we might as well all go get jobs at real technology companies. It's up to us to actually provide real value (successfully rolling out a Windows XP upgrade to the whole enterprise does not count as adding value BTW). and make the business work better. Forget about the latest, greatest thing or "safe" choices and find ways to help the business make more money, either through cost reductions or increased sales. That's what it's all about.
Offshoring isn't going to get you that, but at the moment, neither is in-house IT.
This is Rob Meyer's weblog, a weblog focused on software development and system administration based on 10 years of experience. Want to explore further? You can find out more me or see the rest of my website.
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