RE: The so called 'Consultants' from India

On 20 April, 1996, Anton Geshelin wrote...
> Frank Hendrix wrote:
> >
> > Hey people look what I just found !
> >
> > Read and enjoy
> >
> > --
> > Frank Hendrix
> > LOBBYdata the UK Parliamentary database
> >
> > "
> > I like to share with you my experience with some overseas computer
> > consultants just to see if any other project managers out there has
> > had a similar experience.
> >
> > I am a project manager at a fortune 100 bank based in Boston. I have
> > the sole ownership of about 30 different client/server systems
> > globally, most of these are built around Powerbuilder and Sybase. As
> > you can imagine with a setup this big, we always have a number of
> > outside consultants working on various projects.
> >
> > I recently decided to hire 20 consultants from a firm from India, this
> >
> > firm the name of which I would not say publicly is supposed to be THE
> > consulting firm of India, and has a number of U.S and European
> > companies as their clients.
> >
> > The 20 consultants arrived about 6 months ago, at first, they had to
> > go thru all the problems of leaving their country and families for the
> > first time, which is understandable. But as time went on, myself and
> > few others in the team started noticing that many of these
> > 'consultants' are pretty much devoid of any knowledge of computers at
> > all. Although, a lot of the resumes did indicate they have MSc MCA(god
> >
> > knows what the hell that is!) and other degrees and 'upto seven years
> > experience building Powerbuilder applications',some of these people in
> >
> > reality did not know how change the virtual memory on their windows
> > machine!, amazing you think, it gets worse, once a girl asked me how
> > to format a disk on her PC. I mean these people were downright frauds,
> > about 99% of what they claimed in their resumes were lies!, they were
> > basically bent upon 'learning on the job' the products that they were
> > supposed to have had experience in.
> >
> > And, on top of all this, they want to keep going back to India every
> > now and then, and with the most stupidest of excuses, get this, one
> > consultant had to go and attend a celebration in india of her sister's
> >
> > coming of age!, can you beleive that?.
> >
> > Well, needless to say, eventually all the consultants were slowly
> > replaced with local ones, they are more expensive, but atleast they
> > knew what they are doing.
> >
> > Sandy Sears.
> >
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> > ***
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> > "
>
> I had some good and bad experiences. In this case CAVEAT EMPTOR
> applies!!!
> You always need to check what you are getting. I have seen forged
> degrees from US institutions. Forgeries in India are a much simpler
> and cheaper matter.
>
> The question, I have for you, is, why did you not fire them immediately
> when you realized what happened? That is what a responsible
> project manager should do.
>

Unfortunately, when one uses international consulting firms and has a multinational operation, there are many pressures which prevent one from firing people immediately. Replacing them piecemeal was probably the only viable option. The one weakness that I see is in accepting what the consulting firm wanted to provide for you, without making the candidates go through the same interview process that a local contractor would. There are many cross-cultural issues which can make off shore hiring risky and expensive when one has to take all factors into account, as Mr. Hendrix discovered. Cheap labor rarely is. Received on Tue Apr 30 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST