|
08.30.05
Cost
Savings Beats Expertise For Outsourcers
 By
David Utter
A recent survey from Evans Data shows enterprises using outsourcing in a way many
IT industry observers already knew.
There's no CrackerJack surprise contained in the Summer 2005 Enterprise Development
Survey from Evans Data. 28 percent of respondents, a pool of nearly 400 developers
at enterprises of 1000 or more employees, said their firms were outsourcing for
purposes of cost savings.
About 19 percent of firms outsource for special expertise not present in-house.
Evans Data said in its study that five years ago the percentage was 44 percent,
compared to cost savings as a reason for 15 percent of the time.
"Outsourcing
once made use of high level experts to bring particular expertise to a development
project but now we're seeing that outsourcing is much more likely to be used to
save development costs," said John Andrews, Evans Data's Chief Operating Officer,
said in the release.
"Most companies outsource less than a quarter of their development, most
likely lower level programming tasks that are more cost-effective to outsource
rather than devoting an in-house programmer to such jobs."
Sending away these "lower level programming" jobs seems to send a mixed message
from the tech industry, which has claimed not enough high school students select
the computer science field in college.
Students and their parents, in turn, see stories in the news reflecting these
outsourcing actions; where can a new US computer engineering graduate find employment
if entry-level jobs continue to leave the country?
Outsourcing won't go away anytime soon. 33 percent of the respondent pool believes
their firms will increase outsourcing next year. For those who will be staying
on with their enterprises, 60 percent expect to be working with open source code
on projects in the next year.
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
|
