July 11, 2005 at 5:19 pm
After a few recent editorials on staffing and my previous experiences, I had quite a bit of feedback. Especially on my good bye letter to the Peoplesoft IT group. So when I saw this article about shrinking IT staffs, I was intrigued.
At first I was concerned, fewer IT jobs, more automation, staff cuts, etc. usually lead to poorer performance overall and lower morale, not to mention more work for those that are still employed. But then I remembered recently seeing Gartner say that a few of the IT groups are among the fastest growing job categories and that people will be in demand?
Doesn't seem to jive at first glance, but it makes more sense if you think about it. There are probably some areas, help desk, telco, PC support, etc. that will shrink as technologies change. Phones will become computer devices managed across the IP network, PCs will get ghosted or launched more often so less people will be needed to repair them, and probably a few more things that I can think of. The article mentions IT staff being displaced by IT-savvy workers in other departments. That happens now, but I truly believe that it's a waste of resources. Centralize the IT group and force some accountability, but don't setup part timers. Their skills aren't high enough and they will be much less efficient in performing tasks. Leave IT to IT.
I'm not sure how much I believe the "Indianization" of IT will impact companies. Maybe in some larger companies, but the vast, vast majority of companies and organizations will continue to need IT. Can you see any of the school systems in the US or even other countries coming up with contracts and outsourcing IT to India (or some other country)? Any universities? I think that part is overblown.
What I do think, however, is that DBAs will continue to be in more and more demand. We might have more systems to manage, might need to take on new roles and skills, but slowly we are being seen are more valuable. Data volumes and types increase. And smaller and smaller companies see the value in having someone there to protect and ensure the integrity of that data.
And we hope to keep SQLServerCentral.com around for a long time to help you.
Steve Jones
July 11, 2005 at 8:19 pm
"Can you see any of the school systems in the US or even other countries coming up with contracts and outsourcing IT to India (or some other country)? Any universities? I think that part is overblown.".....
First thoughts.....about 7-8 years ago when the IT boom was at its' PEAK in the U.S could anyone have predicted this outsourcing exodus and the sheer volume of it ?!?!
Second thoughts....I've always felt that many things in IT may come and go...some "go" and never come back...but databases are here to stay...simply because there's NOTHING - no application that I can think of that does not have a data repository need of some sort...
Last thoughts for the night...."the future's not ours to see...que sera sera...."
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!**
July 12, 2005 at 7:58 am
"Can you see any of the school systems in the US or even other countries coming up with contracts and outsourcing IT to India (or some other country)? Any universities?"
Yes
Educational institutions can be the worst because there is no limit on the number of work visas they are allowed to get. Although there is a cap on the H1-B visa of 65,000/yr educational institutions are exempt from the limitation so those visas don't count toward the limit.
[font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
Business Intelligence Administrator
MSBI Administration Blog
July 12, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Steve, thank you for a very nice and thought provoking editorial. Here are some thoughts on IT staffing (based on Marketing and Competitive Assessment experience in Fortune 500 companies, and corporate IT experience that includes Customer Support for both national and international customers).
It seems to me that outsourcing external customer technical support for single, specific products (either hardware or software) is actually more feasible, customer centric, and more likely to occur in the short-term than outsourcing broader internal support functions such as the general help desk, telco, and PC support. However, even outsourcing support for single, specific products won't be a useful long-term strategy unless superb customer support can be provided to end-users. Why?
1. For a single software or hardware product the issues and problems that occur most often can usually be identified fairly quickly, and a "diagnostic decision tree" can be scripted for support providers to use in helping customers resolve their most commonly occurring problems. However, systematically collecting customer support data and providing it to developers and engineering is a "gold mine" for making useful product upgrade and re-design decisions. But if outsourcing is done only to reduce cost, this useful information resource is likely to be lost, or collected haphazardly, because there is no incentive for the outsource provider to do so.
2. Providing end user support for a broad range of products, hardware, and user situations (the usual situation for internal user support) must be more flexible, requires a wider knowledge of hardware and software issues and interactions, must consider various end-user need scenarios, and must also include skill in end-user priority assessment (priority triage).
3. IT management should recognize (if they don't already) that they're in a situation very similar to that of utility companies. Customer perception of how "good" or "bad" they are (their perceived value) is strongly influenced by how quickly they resolve end-user problems and implement effective solutions. From an IT management perspective, end-user perceptions of IT organizations depends upon handling end-user issues and requests quickly, courteously and completely. How cost-effective they are will be evaluated by senior management, not by end-users. Wise IT managers will therfore consider how to report to senior management the cost savings they are producing due to reduced end-user "down-time".
4. Providing superb customer support is becoming an increasingly important strategy for maintaining customer loyalty and influencing re-purchase decisions. As hardware and software products become more and more like commodities (having similar features and price points) customer loyalty is becoming increasingly tied to end-user perceptions of a company and its products. This perception is based on individual customer contact, customer support, and third-party reports of other end-user experiences that are increasingly easier to obtain with Internet searches.
5. Short term, the value of DBAs is likely being driven by the need to staff in response to specific regulatory mandates (like SOX). In the longer term the overall need for enhanced database security and corporate knowledge management should continue to increase the value of DBA's.
These are some key points I believe ought to be considered in IT staffing in order to provide value to organizatons and the products and services they provide. I hope you find some of these ideas "food for thought". Thank you again for the editorial that prompted them!
Jon McAdams
IT Infrastructure Coordinator, MCSE, MCDBA
July 12, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Jeeeez... Jon I thought customers always rated IT departments on their ability to deliver quality products on time and provide courteous and qualified support. Is this a new concept - again?
Maybe it’s just me but there are so many ‘weaselwords’ (see http://www.weaselwords.com.au) in your post that it got the hair up on my back
•Diagnostic decision tree = stuff that’s happened before we can identify
•Gold mine = makes me look good to management
•Priority triage = what fire we put out first
•Down time = hardware/software isn’t working
•Suburb customer support = ? ¿ (got me on that one)
•Re-purchase decisions = your vendors products don’t suck
•Price points = similar costs
There’s food for thought for ya – whew!! Techno speak.
July 12, 2005 at 7:03 pm
Yo JT!
Thanks for catching my typo! "Suburb" should be "superb". Hey, by the way, did you get it? Why outsourcing's not cool?
Yeah, customers always rate IT departments on service, but sometimes you've got to show the "suits" lots of reasons why this "outsourcing" thing can be a real bummer.
July 13, 2005 at 7:35 am
You also have to consider how the success is measured. If you're a company looking into offshoring/outsourcing then you need to look carefully at the companies you might partner with. I have read where some offshoring companies survey their clients after a project but if the project was a failure they "forget" to survey the client.
[font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
Business Intelligence Administrator
MSBI Administration Blog
July 13, 2005 at 10:07 am
I agree with Bryant. I worked for an outsourced call centre a year ago. I have seen how our managers have stretched the truth about reports and information that the client is expecting. The reason for that is the outsourced call centre doesn't want to lose one of their biggest clients. So they stretch the results in order to make themselves look good.
However the company that hired the outsourced call centre won't grow in the proper direction because of inaccurate and misleading information provided to them.
Yes outsourcing call centre duties does reduce cost. But the company that hired them will never get the correct valuable information that they desperately need.
July 13, 2005 at 10:57 am
Yeah I got it Jon - thanks.
Outsourcing is a lot like any other business decision. There are times when it makes perfect sense to do it and other times when it may not be the most cost effective decision but your company needs to keep it in house. 'Growth' as 'chauchnet' points out isn't always a goal for an IT manager though his overworked staff may think it should be.
Measuring the effectiveness of outsourcing cannot be done honestly and fairly in just money. There are countless ways to quantify the success of outsourcing provided you've fashioned a good business plan/case from the start.
The real challenge as I see it is to educate the 'suits' on these different ways of quantifying and reporting success.
JT
July 21, 2005 at 7:47 pm
I posted this in May, I am not a fan of outsourcing and here's my rant why.
There are two problems with off-shoring (ok, slightly OT, but related, and as the topic is wandering back and forth I think I'm safe). First, there is an economic/social contract of sorts: I pay you to program, you spend your check in the local community (or at least part of it), some of that local community come back to me for programming projects (broadly speaking). The payroll taxes that you and I pay support local infrastructure from which we both benefit.
When your workers are overseas, they are not spending money in your local economy and your money is not being reinvested in your community. Their taxes are not helping local infrastructure, and are companies even paying payroll taxes? If they’re writing off their off-shore payroll, then they’re also dodging local taxes and contributing to the decay of infrastructure.
The other problem is balance of trade. How much do we import and export to India? I’m betting not very much. What about Canada, or Brazil, or several other countries in South America? We’re subsidizing a country without a direct benefit for us, whereas if we off-shored to Canada, we’d be bolstering the economy of a strong trade partner, there would be little in the way of language barrier (eh?), we’d have compatible time zones (same with South America) and I doubt there would be a shortage of takers.
(I plan on researching this some to get some solid info)
This grubbing for every last penny is going to kill us. There’s too many layers being ignored.
As far as visas are concerned, I think they should be paid a competitive wage and shouldn’t have a Sword of Damocles hanging over their head. If they’re paid more, there is less economic advantage in hiring them, and American workers might be more attractive.
I think last week’s discussion of employee retention has some merit, talking about how an $80k programmer is worth more than a $30k programmer who is replaced every two years. My current job as a contract programmer illustrates this, there is such a huge amount of institutional knowledge required that I have to get out of people to do what I’m doing that it’s pretty difficult at times. If they tried replacing some of these people who’ve been here 15-20+ years, I shudder to think what the mess would be.
My $0.002 worth.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
July 21, 2005 at 9:39 pm
Wayne you have some valid points. The decesion to outsource is complex and making a decision without taking the time to consider all factors leads companies into trouble. While you are performing your research I would like to suggest that you read Adam Smith's “An inquiry into the nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” This book should be required reading for anyone discussing outsourcing. http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/smith/wealth/
Mike
July 26, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Thank you for the recommendation, Michael. I'll check it out.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
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