UK recession wipes out business case for Offshoring

[swamp]

"Last week I heard a former offshoring consultant say that the impact of recession on contract rates, on top of the fall in the value of Western Currencies (not just the pound), had all but wiped out the case for moving East to save cost."

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/...t-busines.html



Seems almost off topic to post a real contracting story here!

[MrMark]

Absolutely. You would have thought that now would be the ideal time to start a new IT project - all those contractors waiting to snap your hand off for the role at a greatly reduced rate....

[HairyArsedBloke]

Para 2 is entertaining.

Those moving offshore are now more likely to be doing so to avoid the regulatory and other overhead costs of running a business within the UK/EU or to obtain skills that are no longer available here, because of the run-down of our indiginous IT skills base.

[zathras]

"Last week I heard a former offshoring consultant say that the impact of recession on contract rates, on top of the fall in the value of Western Currencies (not just the pound), had all but wiped out the case for moving East to save cost."

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/...t-busines.html



Seems almost off topic to post a real contracting story here!

The case for offshoring was looking fairly shakey a few years ago. Did not stop some doing it though

[minestrone]

Some of the offshore staff I have had to work with are pathetically bad at their jobs. If management cannot see that there is a technology case for not offshoring then why should we expect them to see a business case.

[PM-Junkie]

The case for offshoring was looking fairly shakey a few years ago. Did not stop some doing it though

The case was always one of saving money. The fact that the level of service would drop was of no importance - invariably the bigger offshoring deals were made by an executive paid to slash costs, and usually the bulk of his/her remittance would be based on the amount of cost savings over a 3 or 5 year period. If the service was naff, it wasn't their problem it was someone else's, because they usually take their money and run.

Take away the cost savings, take away the offshoring.

[gingerjedi]

Some of the world’s largest companies have a recruitment freeze on meaning no-one is leaving or starting new jobs within these companies, for a support guy like me that is serious bad new.

For the last month or so I had no new laptops to configure, no accounts to set up or delete, no new connections to setup or remove, no noob calls or training to do, hardware refresh was put on hold too. The result being my contract was cut short.

I suppose when the freeze is over they'll be inundated but when??