Many IT
managers are penny-wise end pound foolish, and after many years of
fixing "Bangalore Bargains", it good to see that the Oracle industry
has awakened to the reality of offshoring. Oracle has become
so complex that no single expert can know it all, and the key to
continuous availability is to select remote Oracle support providers
with proven experience:
Offshoring is not the same as outsourcing
Oracle
outsourcing has been very well-received, especially in-light of
the problems in the American market with Oracle professional
attrition. The average Oracle DBA stays at a shop less than 3
years, and outsourcing with a well-established American
Remote DBA provider ensure
that you have no loss of institutional knowledge:
The problem has been the bad reputation suffered by "offshore"
Oracle providers. The term "offshore" refers to Canadian
support as well, and there have been huge disasters when attempting
to save money with non-American Oracle support services.
While outsourcing has been successful, offshoring has been a
disaster:
- Offshoring is risky:
Allowing someone outside the USA to
build your application can expose your corporation to excessive
losses. Foremost, it's important to understand that offshoring
risks are not limited to India. Even using a Canadian Oracle
offshoring provider can expose your company to serious risks, as
does using any American companies who are subsidiaries of
foreign-owned companies. You should consult a qualified
attorney to understands the extent of these risks.
-
Offshoring is re-shored back to America:
A qualified
coder can create system 20 times faster than a under-trained
offshore developer, and many IT managers misunderstand that
offshoring does not necessarily mean that the work is done in a
low-cost country. As a worldwide leader, Burleson Consulting provides
significant consulting resources to offshoring companies in
India.
Offshoring is low quality:
Oracle database designed by untrained
third world neophytes are called Bangalore Bargains, and they
can be a nightmare to tune, which bizarre design features.
Time and time again, BC has helped companies attempt to
recovery from a poor investment in Oracle systems. Often
as not, these databases are poorly designed and difficult to
repair.
Offshoring is a poor value:
Offshoring promises great value, but nickels and dimes their
clients until all savings are evaporated. The notes below
talk about the "great lie" of lower costs
with offshore Oracle systems development.
Let's take a closer look at these issues to understand why
offshoring Oracle support and development has been such a disaster.
Oracle offshoring risks
Experts agree to it is critical to use an Oracle
remote DBA provider
within your home country so that you are protected by your data
privacy and consumer laws.
This article "Concerns of offshore outsourcers" notes that
American companies may loose the legal protections that are afforded
by U. S. owned companies, especially when managing databases, where
mission-critical data could be siphoned-off to a foreign country,
leaving the Oracle shop with little legal recourse:
"Bribing system, management cost of negotiation with
officials, risks of detection of illegal activity, risk of
breached contracts, etc. Increase the cost and difficulties of
offshore business. Bangladesh, one of the popular destinations
of offshoring, is the most corrupt country in comparison to
Russia, India, China, etc.
Other concern is the theft of intellectual property.
Sometimes domestic companies find that cosmetically
near-flawless copies of their goods are sold cheaper in price
than that of legitimate goods. Often these fake goods are
returned to the company at the legitimate price.
Though IP laws are there, tracing down the overseas fake
producer is extremely difficult. If these problems arise, the
domestic companies doing business overseas may have no legal
recourse. There are also reports of malpractice. "
The article also notes a Duke University study that indicates
that Indian engineers are not of the same quality as U. S. Trained
engineers:
"India is also supplying same number of graduate engineers as
that of America, but they are not qualified enough.
Only 25% of technical graduates and 10 to 15 per cent of
general college graduates are suitable for employment in the
offshore IT and BPO jobs."
CIO magazine in an article titled "31
Risk in Offshore IT Outsourcing Contracts: Or Buying Promises",
notes the significant legal risks associated with a foreign-owned IT
provider:
"No matter how much due diligence you attempt, making a
decision on contracting with an onshore or offshore IT service
provider is much like buying promises. . . .
No matter how much time on money you spend developing a clam
tight contract with an offshore outsourcing provider you never
want to have to consider international litigation or
international arbitration for contract disputes."
But it's not just the risks, there are sound economic reasons not to
offshore your Oracle development.
Offshoring: The Low Cost Lie
The Outsourcing low cost lie describes the nightmare that
offshoring has become for those companies who are unwise enough to
entrust their Oracle systems to a foreign provider.
Unsurprisingly, reducing IT costs is the
primary driver behind outsourcing for 82% of companies in the U.S.
But, as Aberdeen continues,
- Nearly 50% of outsourced
projects fail outright, or fail to meet expectations.
- 76%
of companies said that vendor management effort and costs were much
higher than expected.
- 30% reported ongoing issues with
outsourcer management processes (e.g., inadequate governance and
conflict resolution procedures).
- 51% reported that
outsourcer was not performing to expectations.
