Outsource or perish, US firms told

Rediff.com ^ | July 02, 2004 19:23 IST | Rediff News

[StolarStorm]

Actually Concorde was killed because they let the quality decline dramatically. The planes were getting very old and unsafe. The cancellation of all concorde flights actually began after after Air France's concorde crash.

There certainly is a place for 'cheap' but many companies are finding out that you don't outsource critical functions... doing so is a killer. Cheap or not, if the job doesn't get done... you've just thrown away good money. At least in software, that is starting to become understood by CIO's.

[RetiredArmy]

I have just reached the point in my life, where, sadly, I trust only my wonderful little wife. I trust no one. I find that 95% of the things that people tell you are either a lie, a distortion, has their spin on it, or they have no clue what they are talking about. I believe what I see, not what I hear. They "want" you to believe what "they say." But, I have learned not to believe that. I have to see it to believe it now-days. I find that the truth is a lost art. Honesty and integrity are a lost art. I find more people will simply lie than face the music. Even when caught red handed, they will still try to lie.

When I was 12, my mother was approached by a man who lived across the street from my grandmother (my mother's mom). He was going to move and wanted to know if my mom wanted to buy his house. She did. They sat on the front porch and worked out the details. They DID NOT WRITE THEM DOWN. They simply agreed. They stood, shook hands on the deal. When my dad got home, my mom told him she bought the house across from my grandmother. My dad said fine. When do we move? A handshake. The man came by the house twice a month, on my dad's pay day and my mom gave him a check. He did that for the period of the few years it took for my mom to pay for the house. No interest, no lawyers, no body but them. They went to the county office to sign the papers to change the house into my mom and dad's name. Try doing that now! No way. Honesty ruled. Now, lies do. We can thank the good Bill Clinton for his assistance in that regard. Lie and be president of the USA. Noproblemento.

[GOP_1900AD]

Perhaps you misunderstood my post. To me, outsourcing is both a fad, and, a cop out for enterprises (or those who run them) which either lack the skill to do comprehensive cost management, or, in spite of having the skills, choose not to turn them into comprehensive strategies due to pressure for short term cost reduction, or both.

[citizen]

Many of the QC/QA things you mentioned will be handled remotely by utilizing the ever increasing data transfer rate of the internet. Gigs [if necessary] of job data/docs/drawings/specs/3D-models being sent for review from Far East in mere minutes.

Add in video conferencing and you achieve pretty effective project control from afar.

A lot of the folks that busted their butt to improve the internet aren't too happy about it now being used to send their jobs overseas.

[CarrotAndStick]

But still, I don't think the concordes were more accident prone, plane-for-plane, than regular jets. Considering the very demanding envelope within which the concorde operated, it seems like it is the better performer on safety.

Okay, if my comparison was imperfect, then wouldn't you atleast say cheap no-frills airlines are giving the big ones a run for their money?

[CarrotAndStick]

I was not even born the time you were a kid. But if what you say can be believed >;) ,then those times really must have been golden.

[RetiredArmy]

I was born in 1951. Not that long ago really. I will be 53 next month.

[RightWhale]

if you don't like it they throw you in jail

Nice truck.

[neutrino]

If I may interject -

I perceive a market progression to a bimodal pattern.

The cheap no-frills airlines are doing well. The high end - not the Concord type, but rather the real high end such as private jet ownership and fractional ownership are doing well. Those in the middle languish.

Take a look at NetJets.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

When the natural feedback loop between incompetence and failure is broken, both are perpetuated.

Well said and worth repeating. That is why the left rewards incompetence and sloth with "safety nets" and punishes initiative and success with high taxes. Throw in unreasonable enviromental restrictions, leftist labor unions, and multiple taxes and you wonder how any American company stays in business. That is not by accident.

[tm22721]

Defense subcontractors are fired if they try to outsource Engineering to a foreign country.

BUMP

[StolarStorm]

"Okay, if my comparison was imperfect, then wouldn't you atleast say cheap no-frills airlines are giving the big ones a run for their money?"

Of course, but when times are good the legacy airlines do very well indeed. My company is doing better than many of the LCC's this quarter, granted I work for one of the more effective big carriers. But there is a place for both quality and cheap.

Best of course to be a provider of both... as we are. But rather than relying on foreign outsourcing or other gimmicks, we focus on automation, efficient utilization of planes, fuel and labor.

[StolarStorm]

Almost went to work for netjets... they wanted some of my software. Good company, but they are actually hurting financially right now.

[CarrotAndStick]

"Those in the middle languish."

That is giving me such a splitting, bimodal headache.

[Koblenz]

Honesty ruled. Now, lies do.

I'm fairly trustworthy, I guess. But I still like to take some advice from Ronald Reagan: Trust, but Verify.

[Delbert]

Provide $hitty Customer service or perish, US firms told.

[Dead Dog]

Yet their 17-24 year old peers just wasted the 4th largest army in the world, and ended the 30 year rule of a dictator that NOBODY had been able to touch.

BTW, from what I've seen, public schools are better now then they were when I went through...1976-1988. Things are improving. The young crop of teachers are devout Communists either.

[oceanview]

this is why every college bound freeper - or parents of such - need to steer themselves or their children away from engineering, especially IT and EE. Its dead in the US.

[RetiredArmy]

Well, I flip those two words around. Verify, then trust. Sorry, I am just not a trusting person anymore. I have been burned way too many times. Way too many times.

[RetiredArmy]

And, I said the split was 40% - 40%. These wonderful people in uniform now are in our 40%. But, the other 60% are the problem. Maybe the schools are doing well where you are, but I live in the socialist hell hole of Washington state (for a couple more years anyway till my wife retires then we are getting out), and things here suck. Schools suck. Students suck. Grades suck. Low test scores for the amount of tax dollars thrown at it.