Companies finding some tech jobs best done in U.S.

Some entrepreneurs are finding that India's vaunted high-technology work force is not always as effective as advertised.
The New York Times

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[shikarishambu]

Truth is somewhere in between...

Having worked in both India and US and managed offshore engagements, I think the truth is somewhere in between - what Bassab Pradhan said and what others in the article encountered.

1) Not all projects can be outsourced. If requirements are changing by the hour it is difficult for the project to succeed even in US (adn distance just adds to the troubles)

2) If the US company does not have a methodology (lot of them provide lip service to RUP etc...) you will fail. And, the failure is more due to your weaknesses rather than your outsoucing partners'. Remember your outsourcing partner cannot read your mind.

Outsourcing to India Problems

I would agree that the India programmers are hard working honest people, on this topic I could not give enough positive praise. However, when our company tried outsourcing with a company in India we found that several key issues prevented a successful outcome.
1.) Time difference between India and US. The outsourcing company had a representative in the U.S. who loved to say, "While you are sleeping they are working on your project". Although that might be a catchy slogan it is also impractical. It often took days to resolve even a simple problem - after all, they were asleep while we were working, so an email might not receive a response for up to 12 hours. And that response was often a request for clarification from the India management team. We would reply with another email and often receive more questions. It became apparent that what would only involve a five minute face to face conversation with a programmer here in the U.S. was going to take 24 to 72 hours to resolve with a programmer in India. Direct communication (telephone or NetMeeting) required someone on one side of the world (us or them) to either come to work very early or stay up late - which itself took time to coordinate. Poor line connections, voice quality, static, disconnects and Indian/American accents all made voice communication a tiring ordeal for both sides.
2.) Cultural differences between the U.S. and India. Our product, a behavioral health software system, was poorly understood because the Indian company was unfamilar with the concept of counseling.This caused delays and setbacks as our company had to send staff to India for several weeks to educate the programmers about the process of counseling (software is more than just business rules and code). This was necessary after several false starts and incorrect assumptions were made about the purpose of our software system.
3.) Mixed standards. A fact not shared with our company by the outsourcing company (who was eager to get a contract from our U.S. based company)was their lack of testing standards. Ultimately we were forced to ask one of our staff to travel to India to manage testing for the outsource company there. Our U.S. staff person stayed in India for nearly 2 months in an effort to salvage the project - which was never completed. We were promised that the entire project would take only 6 months. After a frustrating 18 months we pulled out of the project. As you might expect we were served with a law suit by this same company, even though they were unable to satisfy our contract. Having been very involved in this project I would suggest to anyone considering a contract with an India based technology company to consider five things; 1) Will the time difference become a problem 2) Is there a lack of understanding about your product's purpose (how does the product fit into the general knowledge base in India), 3) How complex is your product - do they have the needed experience 4) the India company's physical setup (take the trip and visit their office in India), and 5) project management success - get referral names of other U.S. companies and talk to them about their experience with the India company. This last item is crucial and is an area where we failed to take charge -leaving the processes too much in the hands of the India company and their U.S. based manager (code name for a sales person). Project management is absolutely crucial to the success of outsourcing, a weak manager here will guarantee failure. A good Project Manager should be prepared to travel and work late. Because of the boom in outsourcing to India many "entreprenuer wannabe's" are setting up shop as outsource software companies - check out their history carefully. Having had this experience I would not consider outsourcing to India again, or any other country for that matter, as I assume many of these obstacles would be similar regardless of the country. However, I have three programmers from India on my staff in the US and am delighted with their performance.