Outsourcing is good for US, says professor 4301

First of all, high attrition rates are anathema to "quality." Secondly, as salaries increase (see previous posts concerning double-digit percentage salary increases for Indian programmers for the past two years), the process of hiring and training repacement employees becomes more expensive. Attrition rates are inversely proportional to quality, and as salaries increase they will cut severely into the bottom line. BPO's will not be able to pretend all their employees have the exact same levels of technical skill and ability as Farmer Patel down the road might be around to see some of their employees working for them after 5 years. The other BPO's will go out of business as they will only be able to attract the very bottom rung of the ladder of talent.

Again this goes back to the "quality" discussion we had a couple of weeks ago. You now admit that BPO's hire people with no experience, at "rock bottom wages", once again making the primary argument for BPO: "Price, price, price." Your previous posts provide a contradiction. You post that American companies are opening up new offices in India, that Indian companies are expanding, and that new Indian companies are sprouting up all over the place. This means there will be greater compebreastion among employers to attract the best talent. This means wages will go up across the board. You'll find that even cheap-butt BPO's who work so hard to screw their employees, like yourself, will need to up the ante to attract fresh talent. I think even a fresh IIT graduate wouldn't have trouble figuring out that he can get paid 50% more across the street from your BPO.

Another post you put up provided the Indian answer to your own question. Why wouldn't an American company move to a second or third tier Indian village for cheaper space? Answer: No Infrastructure. Common sense, if nothing else, should tell you that even in the boondocks of BFI (Butt-f*** India) tech businesses need ready access to roads, airports, stores, educated-send employee base, land lines, electricity, running water, and yes - indoor plumbing. By moving to such a remote location, how will they attract fresh new talent? By paying more than the compebreastors apparently; which is contradictory to what you just said above. So when will they move to Vietnam? As soon as the cost of doing business approaches parity. After all, Indian companies are already outsourcing programming work to China after a couple of Indian salary increases... How much do you think it will take to start looking at cheaper labor in Vietnam or anywhere else for that matter?

The fact of the matter is that we are not talking about merit pay raises here. We're talking about pay raises precipitated by 1) an increase in the number of employers with a correlated increase in compebreastion amongst themselves to attract top quality talent, 2) demands from customers for an increase in the quality of goods and service coming from Indian companies and the corresponding need to decrease attrition rates to achieve and maintain high quality levels, 3) demands from employees who are achieving a higher quality of life to maintain that high quality of life in the face of inflation and other market forces.

You can think of it like an exotic dance club, if you like. If the ugliest exotic dancer you've ever seen (fat, smells bad, disabled face, bad breath, hairy, on crutches, leg in a cast and generally not qualified to be an exotic dancer at all) comes up to you in the club and offers you a lap dance for $1; but the most beautiful woman in the club comes up to you at the same time and offers a lap dance for $2, are you going to get the ugly, nasty one to dance for you so you can tell the story of how you saved a buck in the strip club? Or are you going to pay the extra money for the more "qualified" dancer?

If you're like many American companies, you'll give the ugly chick a dollar, put out a press release stating how much money you saved, then turn around and pay the hot chick $5 to do the job right.

The only benefit you've espoused to date is "cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap labor". Now you state that not only is the labor cheap, but it is basically "interchangeable". It is patently absurd to think that every tech worker puts out the same quality of work as every other worker; and it is even more absurd to think that your "McDonald's mentality" concerning attrition rates will not change, even as the compebreastion for quality workers increases.

Your logic is inane as usual, and it will be interesting to see the rising standard of living and increased compebreastion leave you grasping for straws yet again.