Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A thought on outsourcing...

Many reports, case studies, research papers have been published discussing the pros and cons of outsourcing. I have been reading, thinking on this particular subject for quite some time - i would say at least 7 years :). A pain is a pain - irrespective of whether an Indian or American or a Norwegian feels it. So its always hard to justify outsourcing completely, coz' someone looses the job and the wealth pattern shifts - philosophically speaking this is bound to happen... But how do we justify to the employees? When an organisation does it, some of them might accept and move on, a few crib and remain, a few quit, some are forced to quit, some grow hatred over the sourced in citizens. btw, this blog does not relate to any views of the company i work for or its intention to progress in this vein...

Couple of days back, as I 'drove' to my office in a stuffed M4 queue, i tuned into the local Asian radio channel... MissyD the DJ pitched the topic. Lots of westerners are turning to Indian, East European countries to get their health/medical related problems sorted out. The numbers from UK just for this year rose to 70K+... The DJ added that infact a few take a quick flight to Hungary for a dental check. Turkey, Singapore were in the top providers' list. The services includes anything from a heart surgery to dental care to laser eye ops. The DJ's objective on that topic was different. She was interested to know the service feedback...

But this set the ball rolling in my mind... the key benefits that the individual go for such medical services overseas are : cost-effective, better care & attention, no more long waiting times/list and above all good quality. (Sounds the same set of benefits for an organisational outsourcing)

Does this bring the above argument to a full circle? When people look to save a quarter when it matters to their individual monetary budget, why would the big organisations not do it? People want to save costs, get their services quicker and also in a better quality, why would the companies not do it - From a capitalistic view, companies are formed with a sole aim to make money. So they are better placed to source-out. Though this significant point does not answer the cons from an ethical and pure moral point of view, (business & moral? -oxymoron) it definitely counters the argument in a much better strength and would at least challenge the pseudo-nationalists who throw scorn and hatred on the sourcing-in country nationals.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Trip home is never a Vacation.

Yes - I always say to my friends that a trip back home is never a vacation. One among the zillion things I often think about is 'coincidence'. Trip to India was to celebrate the seemantham and valaikappu function for my missus. - Back home, pregnant woman are pampered with these ceremonies and I wanted my wife to enjoy them - she did! that's a diff thing. The word coincidence comes back to highlight. Though the trip's primary reason was something, it turned out to be different later. My dad had a tough time, with his health hitting a real low - He suffered a intestinal bleeding - Melena. The coincidence: I was next to him and was able to share my strength etc (He is an important person in my life - i can write many many blogs about both my parent's contribution to my success...) But it was not just my strength, most importantly the team of doctors, family and friends all of them had their share to aid the old man. So all through the trip, i was on my toes. But i also did a few things - met my long time good friend after 3 years... we had a bit of tiff running between and that was put down, had some real bachelor's day fun time etc etc... so i had my share as well

Returning back to the beautiful isles, i was hit with a flurry of project activities... here i am a month after my return sitting and blogging to keep in touch with netizens... lots to chat, Ram Sethu, T20, rugby, brown's balti, etc etc... Above all, my agilerfragile is pending long time!

C u soon...