Silverfox (8/17/2009)
Really, I havent see the value for money, as you describe, ever come to fruition for any organisation. and I would be intrigued to know the higher level you are describing as all technical roles try and get outsourced at some point.
I have worked with many outsourced projects, but in all of them the org had insisted on having DBA's at their location. At times they would employ the outsourcing firm's DBA, but the person has to be onsite. Of all DBA activities that I've heard of being outsourced involved routine stuff like lock removals, user creation, purging etc. Never heard of a hardcore DBA stuff (dB setup, replication, DR, task automation etc) moving to India (but my exposure may be limited here and don't count Singapore as an outsourcing country). In the routine tasks the org has got value for money ($100+ ph vs $25-35 ph). And its the same when it comes to coding for applications. Maintaining apps is much cheaper ($20 ph) once outsourced than having a contractor with $70+ ph sit and maintain it. Again most of the firms I've worked with prefer the in-house apps to be developed onshore.
As for quality, I've been to both sides of the spectrum and have seen the best and horrendous on both sides; and don't posses the strength to discuss it anymore.
Silverfox (8/17/2009)
Isnt India the main supply of outsourcing... and isnt its economy very much IT based.
For IT, yes it's India (for manufacturing it's China) and yes services sector account for almost 50%+ of GDP. But what's your point in this context?