Jobs going abroad

Generali

bendix wrote: »

So . back to the topic.

I work in the legal profession and one of the hot topics at the moment is offshoring some lawyers . . ie using lawyers in places like India to do the grunt work on major transactions or litigations. Some firms have already off-shored some support services (my old firm has a support facility employing 400 people in Manila for example).

It's the way of the world . . we do these things because we need to cut costs to ensure we remain competitive.

Arguing against it is like Canute raving at the waves to stop coming in.

My professional experience of offshoring/outsourcing (neither are great words) is that if it's done well then you can get a pretty much seamless transition in service with vastly reduced costs. If it's done badly, you upset your clients and it costs a fortune.

Lets take 2 examples of projects I was involved in. Big Bank and Tax Haven Bank. Both involved reasonably complex, rules based operations work.

Tax Haven Bank did it on the cheap. They got a bunch of young, inexperienced graduates from India and gave them 6 weeks training in London before letting them lose. It was chaos and in the end the project was scrapped and the work brought back to the UK.

Big Bank got people with some banking experience and paid them better than usual local wages. They also have a reputation of paying well which helps with the perception side. They brought the new team to London and had them work alongside the Londoners for 6 months. The Londoners were promised that not a single job would be lost as a result of offshoring (true for 2 years, wrong now). As a result we had a team in India who were every bit as good as the guys in London and a pretty much seamless handover.

If you chose to offshore, spend the money to do it properly. You don't get unemployed drunks in as lawyers just because they're cheap. Don't employ undertrained Indians just because they're cheap.

bendix

tomterm8 wrote: »

It's not very smart though, is it?

It's like what happened to the IT industry. They off shored a lot of their core business to india and china. It turned out that the very same people, after learning the ropes on company payrole, decided to use all their new found skills and start their own businesses.

When you off shore core competancies, you should expect that you are training a generation of competitors. It's not even just about off-shore. Whenever you outsource the main part of your business, you might make savings in the short term, but over the long term you are breeding competitors who actually know more about the business than you do.

Perhaps, but not in my profession. In our business it's all about relationships, and they can't be offshored obviously. In the two firms I've worked in we've offshored some legal skills, but frankly it's the grunt work end of legal projects such as document management etc etc - not the heavy weight stuff. the other area is support services (eg secretarial services, graphic design, IT support centres etc.) All mission critical of course, but none of it is client / customer facing and all pretty benign stuff.

bendix

Generali wrote: »

If you chose to offshore, spend the money to do it properly. You don't get unemployed drunks in as lawyers just because they're cheap. Don't employ undertrained Indians just because they're cheap.

Completely agree. In my old firm when we outsourced some of the backend support services we only hired the best people from Manila universities and paid basically double the local market rates. We had a 10-man HR team there to manage it all too.

As for lawyers, well yes . . it's a difficult one but the bottom line is that the Indian universities are turning out law graduates which, frankly, are better than some of those in the UK. They then have a choice to make - earn $5000 a year working for an Indian firm, or $15000 a year doing back end projects such as lititation discovery for an international firm.

Topov_3

bendix wrote: »

Perhaps, but not in my profession. In our business it's all about relationships, and they can't be offshored obviously. In the two firms I've worked in we've offshored some legal skills, but frankly it's the grunt work end of legal projects such as document management etc etc - not the heavy weight stuff. the other area is support services (eg secretarial services, graphic design, IT support centres etc.) All mission critical of course, but none of it is client / customer facing and all pretty benign stuff.

your safe, thats great then. no wonder you dont care about the rest of us and want us all to be swamped with uncontroled immigration. if we lose our jobs then you will be even richer compared with us and will be abel to lord it over everyboady as though you are king of the country and we are all your subjects and you are so pwoerful but your not and i'm here to tell you that your not. you.

bendix

Topov wrote: »

your safe, thats great then. no wonder you dont care about the rest of us and want us all to be swamped with uncontroled immigration. if we lose our jobs then you will be even richer compared with us and will be abel to lord it over everyboady as though you are king of the country and we are all your subjects and you are so pwoerful but your not and i'm here to tell you that your not. you.

Ummmmmm .. ok. Right. Ummmm, yeah.

Good grief, how embarrassing.

As for being safe, why do you say that? The firm I work for has just laid off 8% of its staff - noone is safe at the moment, anywhere.

Of course, it's what you do to mitigate that risk that's important. If I lost my job, I wouldn't mind too much. I have spent the last 15 years working hard, and saving even harder, to ensure I can retire over where I have my house in Thailand where I, ironically my dear Topov, will be one of your despised immigrants myself.

I'll make sure I send a few Thais over here though . . just to keep you and dervish happy.

Adebisi

If my job went overseas my students would never be on time, some of them can't even get in when they live 2 miles away!! Love the cheap clothing

lostinrates

bendix wrote: »

So . back to the topic.

I work in the legal profession and one of the hot topics at the moment is offshoring some lawyers . . ie using lawyers in places like India to do the grunt work on major transactions or litigations. Some firms have already off-shored some support services (my old firm has a support facility employing 400 people in Manila for example).

It's the way of the world . . we do these things because we need to cut costs to ensure we remain competitive.

Arguing against it is like Canute raving at the waves to stop coming in.

Yes. Its also the case with some of the corporate firms' clients. DH's firm has a basis of providing salaries that provide a similar quality of life in the country in which the lawyer is based..i.e. to provide commensurate remunication. Its an obvious, with internatinal communications being so fantastic now, to keep numbers lower in countries that are expensive to live in. UK doesn't score well in the cheapness to live stakes so we have to look at how to draw and retain international business. The FSA afre a part of that: i'm not suggesting we have ''loose'' regulation, but I am suggestin that changing the plan o being to keen with red tape may well put a lot of business right off. We lose the tax, AND the employment then. The internationally flexible, the potential high tax payers, may well be prepared to mve: the less mobile support staff are less likely to, especially where visas and employemtn restriction comes in to play.

lostinrates

bendix wrote: »

The firm I work for has just laid off 8% of its staff - noone is safe at the moment, anywhere.
.

Sorry to hear that Bendix. I've started my list of the global and UK top hundred but it needs up dating. I've had some help and inspiration from Pastures New, the ultimate list maker!

fc123

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

I agree - but I do feel we should make it more difficult than it is for them to up sticks and go. Especially profitable ones and there are plenty of them.

So how exactly do you do that? Tie them down with rope?

Still working my way through the thread though so the answer may be lurking somewhere.

fc123

tomterm8 wrote: »

It's not very smart though, is it?

It's like what happened to the IT industry. They off shored a lot of their core business to india and china. It turned out that the very same people, after learning the ropes on company payrole, decided to use all their new found skills and start their own businesses.

When you off shore core competancies, you should expect that you are training a generation of competitors. It's not even just about off-shore. Whenever you outsource the main part of your business, you might make savings in the short term, but over the long term you are breeding competitors who actually know more about the business than you do.

Happened and is still happening in my industry too.

One on our closest friends is very high up in design education. He noticed it some years back.

Just as smart, talented and able etc BUT also bi-lingual Chinese/ English with contacts back home to enable the manufacturing part.

I voted 2 but none really fitted...so I voted with a foody theme in mind....and nice cheapy rugs and things from Ikea.

I thought I had benefitted from the cheaper imports that I could buy in for my shop over the past 4 years.....the previous 3 years were unbelievable for price. Customers just took it all for granted though.

However, the race to the bottom contributed to actually killing off my Real Life Land shop in the end.

Sales volumes dropped (not just through the Cr Cr but through local issues also) and we were just left with the relatively low prices......therefore not enough ££££ came in to cover the increased overheads.

I make in England, it is profitable but only due to the way I run things...............I will post another chapter later.

BTW, What is Topov doing on Gens thread? Anyone here feel like you put your head above the parapet? Ready to be potshot at?