Offshoring, Outsourcing and Enterprise Architects
James McGovern writes a very interesting blog entry titled “Outsourcing and the Emancipation of the Enterprise Architect” He begins with an anecdotal straw-poll of six enterprise architects about outsourcing stating “I asked each of these individuals whether their employer was currently outsourcing work to India.... My last question to these individuals was once outsourcing to India fails, would you within your own mind, smile?” for rest of the discussion, I read with the assumption that James uses offshoring interchangeably with outsourcing. In the blog, he goes on to add:
“Let's pretend that Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Brenda Michelson, Grady Booch, Joel Spolsky, James Robertson, James Tarbell, Robert McIlree and other top talent in the blogosphere were all offshore working in Bangladesh. I believe folks would not only be more participatory in terms of making outsourcing a success, they would actually volunteer to make it happen so as to work with these individuals. If there is a way to eliminate all the lower-talent folks in India (approx 97.4% of the IT population) then outsourcing would not only have a better chance of success but enterprise architects would be emancipated...”
Let us switch gears to another blog by Business Week writer Steve Hamm who blogs
“The Indians have been doing classic systems integration work for years—mostly installing big complex software packages from the likes of Oracle and SAP. But, to gain the kind of sway with customers that the best of the Western tech services outfits enjoy, they have to build up their consulting capabilities and handle more transformational engagements.
When it comes to business or solutions consulting, Infosys seems to be the farthest along . . . .
Steve quotes Infosys’ new chief executive, Kris Gopalakrishnan “Offshore outsourcing is only one part of the puzzle,” he said. “If you want to take full advantage of outsourcing and take advantage of globalization, you have to help organizations make the transition.”
The contrast between the viewpoints of bloggers is marked, and perhaps goes to the heart of argument, can ‘high end services be offshored?’ …. if yes, by whom and where to? Having participated in a fair share of ‘strategic consulting’ and ‘Enterprise Architecture’ (EA) engagements for clients ranging from Fortune 500 to smaller/mid-size organizations in the recent past, here are my two cents:
- Contrary to what James and his peers believe, sourcing of EA, Centers of Excellence and architecture definition is already happening, and in many cases extremely successfully. This is a topic we looked at earlier in this blog [and referenced in my recent Cutter IT Journal paper: “The IT Innovation Process: Necessity or Oxymoron?”]
- James talks about ‘pretending’ how offshoring would succeed (only) if industry gurus like Martin Fowler et al were offshore. Well, we don’t have to go too far: Fowler’s ThoughtWorks is already offshoring Agile Software Process with Offshore Development; eating one’s cooking?
- Though I don’t completely agree with James’s viewpoint on “a way to eliminate all the lower-talent folks in India” one has to agree that the large number of people hired and trained from Engineering schools in recent times by service firms offshore will take time to cut their teeth [Ref: Vinnie Mirchandani’s hilarious blog on The "Day Care" Model] Agreed, these are not the people who will compete for global EA work
Bottomline: High-end ‘technology consulting and Enterprise Architecture definition also involves Organizational Dynamics 101: A dimension of ‘high end’ work being sourced (and offshored) that most people ignore is the Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome which I have seen surfacing in many engagements. There is a reason for this: techies, designers and architects, especially Enterprise Architects are an extremely proud lot. Now, I could stir a debate by stating that many EAs don’t openly seek ideas and ‘best practices’ from other ‘silos’ in their own Enterprise. In large organizations, getting ‘Enterprise Architects’ talking to ‘Portfolio Architects’ and ‘Application Architects’ requires a very savvy technology governance council and an assertive CxO.
Getting the Enterprise Architecture community to seek outside council, especially from an outsourcing vendor is not really a debate about offshoring.....it is an internal (organizational) debate about seeking outside council; you either need consultants to help you or you don't! [And let's not mix this debate with where your consultants are going to come from]
Comments
James McGovern is a bigtime India basher, with specific focus on IT cos like Infy, Wipro, TCS, etc. His hatewave even caused him to float an idea called "back sourcing" (backsourcing.blogspot.com). He however seems to have a soft corner for China and believes that China is better than India in "every respect". His biggest misunderstanding is that the software developers in India are living in a "controlled regime" wherein we are not allowed to blog, talk to people and express their opinion. He also feels that 97.4% of software employees in India do not deserve the job. Thank God, he lives in a country where there are too many intelligent and hard working people. He measures intelligence based on number of blogs published and says even though there are millions of software people in India, not even a single person writes a significant blog and they are scared about commenting about his idea of "back sourcing".
Posted by: Appu | December 30, 2007 7:04 AM
Hi Appu
I admit that I read James’ postings, more for his eclectic viewpoints on topics on technology management. This said, I take some of his personal views with a grain of salt.
While I understand how you feel about his views, the power of blogs and web 2.0 technologies lies in allowing a free exchange of ideas and opinions… even those contrary to one’s own.
Posted by: Mohan | December 31, 2007 3:19 PM