Onsite-Offshore model

If you are familiar with IT (Information technology) jargons, the term 'Onsite Offshore model' would not be new to you. But if you are not remotely related to IT, then this might sound as beautiful a phrase as 'for the people, by the people and of the people' would sound to a citizen under a tyrant's rule. This is a funny yet true narration on what this model is all about!

With virtually every youngster* in India getting into IT these days, India has quite a lot of Information Technologists. An intelligent business man taps these resources and builds an IT organization usually ending with the phrase - 'Consultancy Services' or 'Technology Solutions'. The business man realizes that doing projects for 'Shamuga pandian steel rolling mill' or 'Bhuvaneshwari gas agency' is not going to be so profitable and the exchange rate is where the trick is. If an average employee in US gets 40$ per hour for a job, the 'IT giant' (by now the company calls itself by a lot of names and the most famous of the lot is this one) quotes 25$ per hour for the same job. The US company prepares a farewell speech for its current employee that states "Bill is an excellent resource and has been a pillar to our business from the day we started...." and offers the job to the IT giant. To the IT giant the 25$ quote is a profitable business because the company gets 25 * 40 (the exchange rate for a USD in INR rounded off to the nearest tangible number) = 1000 INR (hope my math is right :D) per hour for an employee for a project. An average software professional gets around 35K INR per month and that means for 160 hours of work (at least that is the official number) he gets paid for 35 hours and guess where the rest of the money goes! Big deal...

However there is one problem. To a US company that doesn't know about this 'IT giant' it is hard to digest and believe the fact that everything could be done thousands of mile apart without a single soul in front of them. But if all the workforce is shifted to the client location, then the giant would no longer be in business (remember the *40 factor). That is when the IT giant comes up with the most innovative idea - "Onsite Offshore model". According to that model, a scape goat will be identified to sit in the client location (a.k.a. onsite) and smile at the client when asked to and give a serious look in meetings when the situation demands. Ideally this scape goat is supposed to understand the client requirements narrated in funky English, guide the offshore team and get the work done in stringent schedules. In return of his favor, he'll be paid in USD and due to the fabulous 40 factor, there is an omnipresent urge among the Indian IT professionals (?!) to become scape goats. Ironically, the team that is provided to the scape goat will largely be composed of freshers and trainees who haven't seen any real time code. This means that he has an offshore team to talk to but not a team where he can get the work from. At times the luck is reversed and the offshore team sits day and night at the office to deliver the project on time while the onsite representative just gives in a call to follow up on the status of the tasks allocated.

Apart from these folks, there is a third category - managers. Process Manager, Delivery Manager, Account Manager, Assistant Manager, Manager, Client partner, you name it. The purpose of these managers is to make sure everything is 'up and running', get more business for the company and try to cut down the expenses as much as possible. Quite often the third factor leads in scape goats being used as multi-purpose resources.

If you are an American and you see a lot of Indian population in your locality, don't be mad that the US Government has become so liberal in allowing immigrants. It's just that the onsite-offshore model is working out to benefit an American business and an Indian family; and in most cases the Indians you see are going to get back to India sooner or later.

* - Note to statistics experts - this is a hyperbole and not meant to reflect exact numbers.