The Outsourcing Bogeyman
Dan Drezner has published an article, “The Outsourcing Bogeyman” in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs . While not peer reviewed in a traditional academic sense, it’s easily the most prestigous journal in IR policy circles–and certainly the most widely read. The plastic wrap is still on many of my issues of International Studies Quarterly, but most of my copies of Foreign Affairs are highlighted and contain marginal notes.
Congrats to Dan on the publication. Ironically, my only “real” publication is in ISQ.
Well, as a fellow “Hi-Tech Worker,” I’ll have to respectfully disagree. If someone can do the same job for one fifth the cost, it would be irresponsible to continue to pay 400% more than you have to.
So what I have to do is something the offshore outsourcer can’t do, or can’t do as well as I can. Those of us in this line of business have learned many new things in order to get where we are. We just have to keep learning new things, branching out, innovating.
And don’t just think in terms of the latest high tech buzzword. Where we, as Americans, are probably best able to distinguish ourselves from our offshore competition integrating the tech with the business. We can’t just sit back on what we learned up until 2000 or so and expect to live high on the hog forevermore just by picking up a new programming language, or mastering the nuances of a new operating system. Now more than ever, he who fails to continue learning is dead.
If you can’t win on head-to-head competition, you’re just changing the rules of the game in midstream so you can win.
If I can’t do something that makes my efforts more valuable than the offshore guy, I don’t deserve to get paid more.
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