I recently came across a somewhat provocative article on the issues companies face when they decide to use offshore resources in the online version of CIO magazine.  In the article IT Outsourcing System Is Broken, How Can Service Providers Fix It?, Andrew Wasser, the the associate dean of the Heinz College’s School of Information Systems and Management at Carnegie Mellon University goes beyond the usual issues of language and cultural differences into some issues I had not considered.  In particular, he asserts that:

• The demand is so great that no IT vendor can really say they only have the best of the best people.  They all have to reach down below the top students in the top tier schools.
• The hiring practices of most IT vendors resembles a formula that weeds out the people most likely to be a source of true innovation.  They tend to hire only those students who have always done exactly as they were told their entire life.  He believes that type personality is unlikely to take the risks required to bring forward innovative ideas and make them a reality.
• The companies choosing offshore resources are partly to blame because they don’t really want to be bothered with their offshore teammates.

Here are some quotes to get you thinking.  On recruiting:

“In the beginning when you talked to a tier-one sourcing [firm], they would tell you, “We get the best of the best.” They made offers only to the top 0.5 percent at the universities. And they may still tell you that today, but the reality is quite different.  Because of increased competition and a shortage of talent, they have had to go much deeper into the pool of students and go to second and third-level schools. They are no longer getting the best and the brightest.”

On offshore teams as a source of innovation…NOT:

“We see continued frustration from clients that these people are really good order takers, but they are not problem solvers. They are smart — no question — but they are not the strategic partners they had hoped they would be…..”

“One issue is what I call the “filter effect.” The sourcing firms go to the same affiliate universities and programs year after year. The HR people have a formulaic set of attributes they are looking for. Did they take discrete math or programming one and two? How were their grades? When they can check off all the boxes, they make an offer. So they are getting students who have done exactly what they were supposed to do. They graduated from high school with good grades. They told their parents they wanted to study history or art. The parents said, “Great, but you’re going to be an engineer.” They have no gaps in their studies, no blemishes on their records, their extracurriculars are all in place. And when they finally graduate with a chance to do something innovative or unique, they once again do exactly what mom and dad tells them to do — apply for a job at IBM or Infosys….

Then the firms say, “Why aren’t my people innovating?” Well, you filtered out all the people who might innovate — the guy who took time off to hike the mountains or the girl who tried to start her own t-shirt company or the student who stumbled freshman year because he was interested in guitars and girls. You hired people who are good at doing what they are told and now you wonder why they’re only [a] good order taker. “…..

“Once you get into these sourcing companies, they all follow CMM-I or Six Sigma or ITIL. They put in place all these SLAs and metrics and procedures and policies. I have no problem with process frameworks. They have been great for our industry and turned what was a craft into a science. But they do not foster innovation. No one is willing to say, “Hey this might not meet the SLA or it’s not ITIL, but here’s a novel way to address a business need.” “…..

“One of the issues particular to offshore outsourcing is what I call the “texting effect.” Whether you are in China or Mexico or India, the [English] speaking and listening and writing skills aren’t always great to begin with. Adding to the problem is that engineers are notoriously weak communicators. And if, on top of that, the engineer doesn’t understand the business drivers, they’re never going to speak the real language of the client. “…

On the topic, “Are the customers responsible?”

“The client holds a whole lot of responsibility. They often don’t want to spend much time with the Indian guy — they don’t think he’s that fun, he has an accent, and he can’t talk about the Syracuse win last night — that’s a problem.

That is tied up with what I call the “context effect.” The client tells the vendor what to do but not why they want it done. If I tell you, “Move this box from here to there,” and you do not know the context, all you can do is what I tell you. But if you understand the bigger picture, you may realize you can discard some of what’s in those boxes, some of it you can scan, and some you can leave behind. There is so much value in understanding the real meaning of what you are trying to accomplish. Context can be especially difficult to gain when a development center is in Monterrey or Chennai. But it is the client’s responsibility to share that business context. “

After both good and bad experiences with globally dispersed development, I was intrigued by what Mr. Wasser had to say.  I must also admit that my first instinct was to agree with much of what he had to say.  At this point, I decided to consult with my US-based and overseas colleagues from projects over the last few years to see what their reaction was.  Here’s a sampling of comments I received.  In some cases the English wording is a little rough but I have left the comments in their words.

These comments are from a friend who grew up and began his IT career in India and who later came to work in the US.  He’s often played a liaison role between US-based teams and teams in India.

“I have been to a few campus interview….and the focus was to hire the brightest not necessarily the creative/innovative. In India from a cultural perspective (and the article correctly points out) more stress is on doing good academically not necessarily on other fronts – one reason you would see why India isn’t very good in many sports’. Some companies do stress on analytical skills but people with creative skills (musicians, artists etc) are often left behind….

There is a set of people who will take an initiative and ask ‘why’, however that is a small layer, most will do what is told. With the demand what has been generated for skilled IT folks in India and with increased expectations of the employees/customers and attrition, lot of people that have been hired aren’t necessarily the best and are happy in doing what is told to them. The article talks about the language and weak communicators which again is true and  in fact there reason why I first got a chance to come to US. I was responsible for bridging the teams in India and the US….

The clients seldom want to get involved with what is happening offshore as long as the work is getting done with reasonable quality, that has been my experience.”

From a colleague in China, there was interest but more questions than a point of view.

“This is really a good article to let us think about some offshore scenarios, it gives us another perspective to look down the IT strategic. How can IT drive business or business drive IT?”

I got these great comments from a co-worker who grew up in India but is now living and working in the US.

I’ve always maintained that there is a cultural-context to the problem at hand, and to come up with an innovative solution, physical & mental proximity to ground-zero of the problem, is very important. This is perhaps the most challenging, in the case of outsourcing engineering projects offshore, among others including, cultural, language & time-zone differences!  As for cultural-differences, it’s important to note that, although solutions to a variety of engineering (social, environmental  & economical) problems may have a business-value, the ability to reap the value depends on the business-maturity of a particular culture & hence it’s willingness to take on such problems. So it’s not surprising at all that there is little value to outsourcing especially knowledge based work, to locations where the culture does not have the business-maturity to reap the benefit  and foster innovation. In addition, the culture of automation & instrumentation is still far-fetched in cultures that do not share, the long history of industrialization which should be taken into account, & factor the necessary training requirements (communication, planning, execution & delivery of engineering projects) to make the best of outsourcing  work, off-shore.

He also took aim at one of Mr. Wasser’s comments about clients not thinking their offshore team was interesting to talk to because they would not be able to talk about the latest Syracuse game.

“The Syracuse game reference begs the question, as, which is more relevant to innovation? The most up-to-date knowledge of “American Sports”  scene or that last fascinating research article in “Scientific American”? “

There’s a zinger!  I wonder, does too much sports talk at the office negatively impact innovative thinking?  He goes on to say,

“Outsourcing related problems precipitate, & resonate, only because, i find myself in the midst of such circumstances/projects and have to admit, it’s not easy )  Perhaps the problems precipitate because, most of my adult-life & all of my all of my important formative & life-experiences are American, and I’ve been an American for a long time.”

Here are still more comments, this time from a colleague in Egypt:

“Very interesting point….especially about the responsibility of the client and the context – knowing importance to improve the performance….

The cultural gap between the client and the resource is an important factor in that. It includes the language, the habits, the business conducting conventions, the ethics, the adopted economical system, and even the time zone differences.

 

I liked very much the point you mentioned about how the client sometimes see the resource. I see sometimes clients filled with arrogance, which leads to a dirty communication channel.

 

I would like here to attract the attention to an important point which causes a global international declining: the bad attributes of the frenzy capitalism (I am not completely neither with socialism nor capitalism) which leads to weak ownership of the worker to the business in addition to weak internal motives and patriotism (in case of same country).

One of the important factors in growing the internal motives and the ethics, is inserting good reference inside the child during all the phases of bringing him up. I see the religious ethics is very important in this context.”

In a followup email he explained that by “weak ownership” he meant that employees needed to think more like business owners and show more passion.  He elaborated on the impact of religious upbringing on business ethics also.

“I mean internal thing like conscience that is built throughout child lifetime. This needs something fixed (not changing with the geography, the time, etc). And the best disciplines to use is the good religious principals that the majority of religions have (specially heaven religions that I know). That internal reference will always tell the body to do whatever good for humans, earth, etc. Will prevent him from doing frauds, not doing his best to do the best. He will act as a mission holder.”

From a US-based person.

“ I’m not sure whether this is a generalization of the “garbage in, garbage out” concept, or if we should just quote that great American philosopher Homer Simpson: “Doh.”"

On a final note, I think I should say that I was surprised at how few of my offshore colleagues got riled up about the article enough to reply back to me with comments.  Frankly, I expected a more passionate response.  Even if they were swamped at work, I would have expected the tone of the article to spark more alarm but it didn’t.  Nobody, it seems, disagreed substantially with the article.

One conclusion seems sure.  Using a globally dispersed team is hard work!

PS:  Even as we add more network bandwidth and add social networking features to electronic collaboration tools, it doesn’t feel like it is getting any easier to use a global team.