Comment If it can be done remotelly, it can be outsourced (Score 1) 455
That's been the problem since way back in the time when people started being able to do the work remotelly.
In the mindset of your typical short-termist middle managers: if an "expensive" Developed Nation resource can do it from home, why don't we have it done by "cheap" resources living in Developing Nations.
In the end, the main competitive advantages of local resources are:
- You can see them in person, which increases one's confidence in that they are actually working and in the kind of person they are
- Little or no cultural clashes. People from different cultures have markedly different assumptions and expectations. For example, a not uncommon problem with Indian developers from India is that during a group phone conference they will never admit to not having understood something - due to how in their culture they would loose face - so one has to make up for that one-on-one
- Lower communications overhead: if you have a question, there is little or no overhead to reach them
- You are not importing the issues of a remote country, be it legal problems, infrastructure, excessive sick-leave or others
That said, a lot of these advantages do require in-person presence (at least some of the time), so as long as one can get 4x in a far away country for the price of 1x locally, those problems will be managed.