Wipro's Azim Premji - 'The man who wants to take your jobs'

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Monday 22 March 2004 10:40 am, Bob George wrote:
> I drive a Japanese car. I know there were American workers who were
> impacted by the shift of the automotive industry to Japan (and now
> Korea, etc.). I also know that the two American cars I bought because
> they WERE american (Dodge and Ford) pretty well fell apart within 5 years.
>
> The only way we can hope to change these trends is to learn from the
> lessons of the past. Customers do deserve quality, regardless of where
> the product is made. That extends into service (i.e. call centers) and
> the rest.

And that's the difference.  My hats off to the Japanese.  It costs us American 
jobs, American taxes, and hurt our economy, but the Japanese did it by being 
more responsive to the desires of the consumer, more willing to spend money 
up front in the name of ongoing efficiencies, all while buying the raw 
materials from the country whose butts they were whupping.

In the case of outsourcing IT, customer service, tech support, etc., there can 
be no disagreement by anyone that the products and services resulting from 
this new trend are inferior.  The companies that currently and previously 
employ me both outsource to India.  In both cases I fail to see how it is 
profitable, when we have to spend so much time vetting, debugging, and 
rewriting their code.  I don't know about you, but I've spent over an hour 
and a half on the phone with a support line in India to get an RMA number for 
a product that was thoroughly tested and proven defective by myself.


> I'm not as troubled by the fact that jobs (use the buggy-whip analogy)
> go away, nor that some jobs I've done in the past are less lucrative
> these days (former Novell CNI). I am troubled at the shenanigans the
> politicians play to undercut the American workers to benefit corporate
> interests.

I am equally troubled by the fact that so many companies decide that these 
companies are so willing to make this compromise with the clear-cut evidence 
of just what they are getting for their money mounting daily.

You'll note I don't mention nationalism or protectionism here.  I'm talking 
simple long-term thinking instead of short-term thinking.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
DDDD   David Kramer                           http://thekramers.net
DK KD  
DKK D  "No matter how much cats fight, 
DK KD  there always seem to be plenty of kittens."
DDDD                                  - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)