Thoughts On Outsourcing

On my drive to work some time ago, I listened to a story on NPR about an animation studio farming out their Alvin & The Chipmunks to a firm in India. The image in my mind aside, I had to wonder what this culture must think of America when they are in essence helping to construct this somewhat iconic image cell by painful cell. I felt somewhat violated, like one country saw another country’s skivvies. (I would much rather the story were about story work seen on The Incredibles, Tomb Raider or some Disney animation…but Alvin, Simon and Theodore??)

While the story was celebrating the advancement in virtual meetings and time zone enabled 24 hour work schedules, I compared it to my own experience working on outsourced projects and have to claim that when all is said and done, I fail to see the real cost savings. Virtual communication advances aside (which do save time and money if used appropriately) I added up the hours it took me to complete the project, the phone calls, the additional meetings, the travel, the language and cultural issues…it’s quite expensive and in the end, the quality of the work suffered. I read the rather alarmist The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman and have to say, agree with most of his observations which basically boil down to: when it comes time for the next generation to apply for a job, a B student from Poughkeepsie will no longer beat out a PhD from China.