Thanks for all the responses and comments. Essay question paper now written and will be turned in on Monday when I take the test.
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 1:40 PM, David Lum <[email protected]> wrote: > I was outsourced. I worked for Textron for about 10 years, then they > outsourced their support IT staff – server admins, Help Desk, etc - to CSC > (www.csc.com). Bryan’s first paragraph described the experience pretty > well, all the way down to and including “…took 72 hours, prior to the > outsourcing it would have been resolved in less than a few hours”. > > > > I worked in the same office working with the same people, but the procedure > change was excruciating. Case in point (I even brought this example up at my > interview here at NWEA). Textron and CSC negotiated the contract such that > CSC charged Textron for every port that was turned on on every switch. What > does this mean? Imagine any time a new employee is hired…”hey we need to > find what port on some switch to activate”, and when they leave “we need to > disable that port”. And what if you need an impromptu connection? The guys > managing the switches weren’t even in the same state! > > > > If Textron had a clue, they would at LEAST have said “charge us by MAC > address and just leave all the ports on” and then CSC could just audit their > address tables once a month. And don’t think there weren’t a few Linksys > grade switches coming off the main switches to ad hoc activate some wall > port because the SLA to activate a port was 24 hours. > > > > Example 2: Need to reboot a hung server? Cool, but even if the reboot was > successful and you knew what the root cause was, you needed to attend a 90 > minute change review board meeting – at least until they got to you and no, > they didn’t start the meetings with the “quckie” stuff either. > > > > Example 3: End users weren’t happy that no matter how many times they > called, they have to give the s/n of their computer, their phone number, > etc. It turned out to be an effective way to cut down on call volume. > > > > I am convinced Textron did it for two reasons: Many of their competitors > were doing it, and it looked good to the shareholders. After two years of > this insanity none of the numbers I saw ever bore out any financial > advantage, and certainly my end users to a man were far less satisfied with > their support. IMO it was a slimy way to spread IT support costs throughout > all Textron’s divisions because the cost was spread, but the mean level of > support tanked. > > > > I left CSC because I couldn’t stand the overhead of doing my work, my work > life became like NetBEUI… > > *David Lum** **// *SYSTEMS ENGINEER > NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION > (Desk) 971.222.1025 *// *(Cell) 503.267.9764 > > > > *From:* Sherry Abercrombie [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:58 PM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* Outsourcing Discussion > > > > Guys and gals, > > I've returned to college this fall after about 15 years to finally finish > up a degree I started on about 25 years ago. One of my classes this > semester is Macro Economics. Last night my professor gave us an essay > question for a test next Monday that is potentially 50% or more of our test > grade. The topic is on outsourcing and I wanted to toss this out for > discussion, input, personal experiences etc etc. The questions I have to > answer are: > > What is the economic justification given for outsourcing? > Where is the outsourcing taking place? (Obviously, I'm focusing on the IT > field, specifically technical support) > What types of jobs are these workers performing? > What is the benefit to the business? To foreign workers? > > I talked with my professor and told her what approach I wanted to take, > from the end user perspective, and that I had experienced the tech support > being outsourced. She liked that idea a lot. Obviously, I will be looking > for other news articles to support my essay. What I'm looking for is > thoughts, opinions, personal experiences from an end user perspective, has > anyone here been outsourced? What was that like? I'm just taking an > informal poll from a group of my peers that I know has had personal > experience in some way with this subject. > > Try to keep it on topic, I did get Stu's OK before sending this, so a big > Thanks Stu for the use of these lists to help with my exam. > -- > Sherry Abercrombie > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." > Arthur C. Clarke > Sent from Haltom City, TX, United States > > > > > > > > > > -- Sherry Abercrombie "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke Sent from Newark, TX, United States ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
