Send Jobs to India? Some Find It's Not Always Best

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html

Send Jobs to India? Some Find It's Not Always Best
By EDUARDO PORTER

New York Times
Published: April 28, 2004

Even as the prospect of high-skilled American jobs moving to low-wage countries
like India ignites hot political debate, some entrepreneurs are finding that
India's vaunted high-technology work force is not always as effective as advertised.

"For three years we tried all kinds of models, but nothing has worked so far,"
said the co-founder and chief technology officer of Storability Software in
Southborough, Mass. After trying to reduce costs by contracting out software
programming tasks to India, Storability brought back most of the work to the
United States, where it costs four times as much, and hired more programmers
here. The "depth of knowledge in the area we want to build software is not good
enough" among Indian programmers, the executive said.

If it sounds like "Made in the U.S.A." jingoism, consider this: The
entrepreneur, Hemant Kurande, is Indian. He was born and raised near Bombay and
received his master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in that
city, now known as Mumbai. Mr. Kurande is not alone in his views on
"outsourcing" technology work to India. As more companies in the United States
rush to take advantage of India's ample supply of cheap yet highly trained
workers, even some of the most motivated American companies — ones set up or run
by executives born and trained in India — are concluding that the cost advantage
does not always justify the effort.

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