I think some of those figures in there are outdated and no more relevant (notice this article has been written in August 2006). It states that the rise in salaries is 15 %.. I have acquaintances and ex school mates who have seen an income jump of more than 100% over just the last year. Cost of living in major cities in India like Bombay, Bangalore is almost comparable to cost of living in any other big city or town in the world..
Good apartments at semi-decent residential locations in Bombay (like Bandra, Khar, Santa Cruz, Powai Lake, Hiranandani Colony) cost in close to a million USD. Renting apartments in such places could cost slightly shy of 1000 USD. You do not even want to consider living down south in Bombay (Cuff Parade, Hanging Gardens) unless you are a billionaire or are making at least a 150 - 200 K USD.. Unfortunately with the kind of infrastructure in India, you do not have that option of joining a top notch IT firm in India and live in a cheaper rural residential region as such places do not exist near big cities - where all the big businesses are at. Yes there are cheaper options but you do not even want to consider that. These cheaper options come either in unsafe neighborhoods or neighborhoods that have little or no facilities such as malls or grocery stores conveniently located. You would probably have to buy new hub caps for your car every second day at such places - if you do find your car where you last parked it... :-) Cost of cars is over 100% more than what they cost in the USA. A 30K Honda Accord for e.g.. costs nearly 60K in India. Designer wear is much more expensive there than it is here. These costs are way higher there cause of the higher import duty on such commodities. Dining out / clubs and pubs / cinema is perhaps the only thing that is cheaper there than it is here. While human resource is still cheaper than most places in the USA, Bombay is experiencing one of the biggest economic booms of this century and I'm pretty sure within the year that this article has been written, an average IT professionals income is way more than a mere 10K a year. I would think its closer to about 70 or 80K going by what some of my friends who were my mates in university make out there. Addressing the problem with Remedy Support - their support center is based in Pune. The problem with Pune is many of the locals there have what we describe as an accent problem. Had they been located at Bangalore or Bombay, they might have able to find better suited individuals with a lesser accent or at least a more understandable accent. Being an Indian and a Bombayite myself (I was born and raised in Bombay and am a native of Goa), I find it hard to understand some of them. I have a pretty hard time understanding some of them myself. Some of them have a too strong south Indian accent and I often find myself asking them to repeat themselves. If Remedy support did feel the need to take their support center down to India to cut costs or whatever, I do not understand why they didn't set up in either Bangalore or Bombay where it would be a whole lot easier to source candidates that do not really have an accent problem. For the most part its much more easier to understand the accent of an average Bombayite or a Banglorean.. Maybe even a Delhi.. My 2 cents.. Joe -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Opela, Gary L Contr OC-ALC/ITMA Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 3:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT-Support Question - Whine - Rant - Ignore me! (UNCLASSIFIED) 10,000/yr in India probably is not that bad of a salary, especially if you look at the alternatives for that region. Thanks, Gary Opela, Jr Sr. Remedy Developer Leader Communications, Inc. 405 736 3211 -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT-Support Question - Whine - Rant - Ignore me! (UNCLASSIFIED) $10 a day is an exaggeration, but not by much. The average IT worker in India in 2006 made only $9,898 a YEAR! Don't believe it? See for yourself: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/08/us_ranks_a_midd.ht ml What will they do when they realize they're being taken advantage of? NOTHING! Why? Because they have no recourse because there is a terrible surplus of labor in India, Pakistan, and China. So some IT workers in India catch on that they're getting exploited. They strike. Guess what? They're fired. There are 1.1 *BILLION* people in India and they're easily replaced. -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of FRANK, GORDON CTR DISA JSSC Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT-Support Question - Whine - Rant - Ignore me! (UNCLASSIFIED) Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE I can't believe that other countries are only making $10/day with no benefits. The Help Desk reps in India are very skilled and very good and I'm sure they are compensated pretty well. I could be wrong, but what happens when this source realizes they have been taken advantage of. Where do we go then? Mars?? I think the major complaint is they are hard to understand. They speak English, but they tend to speak very rapidly (which is a credit to their speaking ability, because they understand each other and us slowwwwwww Americans can understand them.) If there are any India listeners out there, please have patience with the American culture and language. I believe there are a few Help Desks in rural America. Has anybody had experience with any of these? Gordon M. Frank DISA\Version FNS -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Axton Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 2:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT-Support Question - Whine - Rant - Ignore me! (UNCLASSIFIED) To some degree this is true. In a competitive market, companies will do whatever they can, legally (most of the time), to remain competitive. This means that when one company dips to new lows, others will typically follow if it works. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work the other way; when companies operate at a higher level, they are eaten by their competitors because they can not remain competitive. This is why we have laws in place to regulate certain types of actions and practices. Laws are intended to set the minimum at which entities are expected to act. Sometimes it becomes necessary for the government to become involved by either raising or lowering the bar so far as the minimum of what is acceptable (legal). There are arguments on both sides of this dichotomy: - there are only so many skilled workers of a given type in a given geographical region - there are large discrepancies in what is required in terms of compensation for different geographical regions (10USD/day vs. 10USD/hr) - reputation - which takes a long time to build and only a moment to destroy (this seems to be undervalued these days, probably because there is no way to easily correlate a price tag to it) - quality - there are good people on both sides of the pond; practical experience, language barriers, time differences, etc. tend to be impact people's perception of quality Axton Grams On Nov 6, 2007 2:03 PM, Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >It sounds harsh, but BMC doesn't appear to be willing to pay the > price-tag associated with treating their support helpdesk people the > way they, themselves expect to be treated in their own country. > Overseas manpower is cheap for a reason. > > It's not harsh at all. Outsourcing jobs from Europe and the US to > places like India and the Philippines is, quite simply, the new form > of serfdom. I don't care who does it--it's just an under-the-table > trick to avoid having to abide by modern fair labor laws. You know, > the ones about minimum wage, workman's comp, safe workplaces, etc. > > >Given how niche of a market Remedy is ... for how incredibly large > >the > price-tag for Remedy ... for how pricey SUPPORT, ITSELF IS (which is > separate from the actual licensing) ... I simply can't believe that > there isn't the profit margin to afford to hire quality, native > English language support inside the US or EU. > > Of course they can afford it! They simply choose not to. By > outsourcing, you increase company profits in the short-term. That > drives the stock price up (temporarily) and allows top executives to > qualify for their annual performance bonuses. > > Do I sound cynical? Maybe. But I guarantee you this is true. 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