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The only way to make offshoring pay
In response to Danny Bradbury's article on the hidden costs of
outsourcing
Cheap labour costs save the UK money only if:
- A small percentage of business is moved abroad and the majority
of work remains in the UK
- Core knowledge is not transferred overseas, which would allow
foreign countries to compete with those companies moving the work
offshore.
Clearly, anybody with half a brain would realise that if you can
move IT offshore, you can do the same with about half the jobs in
the UK.
It is also obvious that if you transfer jobs, you transfer
knowledge. There is also the cost in lost tax revenue, increased
benefits and loss in profits because of reduced morale from staff
under threat of having their jobs moved abroad.
The offshorers' arguments that IT jobs will be replaced by
higher-value jobs is ridiculous. If IT jobs can go, so will the
higher-value jobs that replace them. This would require our economy
to generate increasingly higher-value jobs more quickly than our
competitors.
As India produces more graduates than the UK and the US, it is
unlikely that we can maintain an intellectual advantage if we so
freely hand over all our accumulated knowledge.
The solution is to prevent offshoring. If labour costs must be
reduced, immigration is preferable. This way UK companies could
keep tabs on what jobs and information was being disseminated and
to whom, and the UK government would get tax from workers.
Free trade is a fine thing, but telling your competitors how to
undercut you is just plain stupid.
James Dey
Criminal waste shows lack of understanding
In response to Colin Beveridge, who said the government was
failing to see the importance of IT infrastructure
"Government doesn't understand IT". Spot on. Take the UK's police
forces as an example, managed, one would delude oneself to think,
by the Home Office.
Why do UK taxpayers have to fund the costly creation of dozens of
regional police websites when each one essentially has to do the
same thing? Why didn't someone in authority say, "stop this
nonsense, let's have a single approach and let's make all the
regional forces use it"?
I have been called in by one police force, which I shall not name,
to help develop a custom software solution for its website.
So far, the force has spent about £20,000 on trying to implement a
custom solution which could have been bought off-the-shelf for
£49.99 at Amazon.co.uk. Judging by the variety of police websites
out there, all with an individuality that goes well beyond the
force's badge image and motto, the mind just boggles at how much
taxpayers' money is being squandered by police forces up and down
the country.
And to cap it all, none of this wastage gets us one nanometer
closer to catching criminals, or helps prevent such outrages as the
Soham murder case.
It is no wonder there is not even the seeds of a national police IT
system capable of preventing criminals from starting a new life 200
miles down the road and committing more serious crime.
Incompetence. Royal incompetence. And all conveniently hidden
behind the reinforced steel barrier of the Official Secrets Act.
They can be so clever when it comes to protecting their pensions,
can't they?
LV
The 100-year analogy [it takes any new technology at least 100
years to get onto the real political agenda] is not a bad one. But
wouldn't the government be better advised to concentrate on the
outcomes rather than the methods? If we really want to be the world
leader in e-business, why not concentrate on a few industries that
might become world leaders, and help them develop the IT to do
it?
IT is a lot more than boxes and bandwidth - it is streamlined
processes, clear thinking, an integral supply chain and strong
direction.
Technology will never be our number one export, but a brilliant
financial services industry, streamlined health service, animated
film industry, or virtual bio-tech labs might be.
It is the end-service we want the monopoly in - if we had realised
that a little sooner with shipping, we might have taken a more
enlightened approach to shipbuilding and steel.
Keith Skeaping