OUTSOURCE: Competing in the Global Productivity Race [Hardcover]

Edward Yourdon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131475711 | ISBN-13: 978-0131475717 | Publication Date: October 14, 2004 | Edition: 1

Brain Drain does not focus on just the IT phenomenon, though it continues to be one of the more prominent examples because of recent media coverage of outsourcing. The focus of this book is more on strategies and guidelines for coping--at the individual, corporate, and national level ---with a phenomenon that's alraady here, and alresy "mainstream" in nature. The real focus of this book is on the individual. After all, it has been individuals who have emailed Ed continually, ever since the publication of Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. It's individual knowledge workers, far more often than corporate executives, who run the risk of losing their jobs as a result of this global shift of products and services. And it's individuals, as several correspondents have reminded me in recent months, who have to advise their children what careers and professions they should follow -- and the outcome of those choices will ultimately have a far more profound effect than a politician's modification of a visa quota.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1992, Yourdon published Decline and Fall of the American Programmer, which predicted that U.S.-based coders would "suffer the fate of the do-do bird" as firms shifted jobs from American workers to those overseas in order to take advantage of lower pay scales and less labor regulation; following the high-flying late '90s, that prediction has proved correct for many kinds of programming. A lifetime IT veteran, Yourdon has spent the last decade on the board of directors of a U.S.-based outsourcing firm and its Indian subsidiary, and the result is this insider's look at "knowledge-based" industries: the computer industry, as well as other "back office" operations like mortgage application processing or legal services. Refreshingly, the book is explicitly not designed for managers of any kind, but rather to give employees a sense of trends and context when deciding how to move within their own industries and how to "advise their children what careers and professions they should follow." Yourdon is not an economist, but his praxis-based evaluations, bolstered by reports over the last few years culled from the business press, feel carefully digested and are clearly presented in an affable voice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

"In OUTSOURCE, Ed Yourdon conveys a nuanced understanding of a topic that too often has fallen victim to exaggeration and oversimplification. Will your job move offshore? That depends. Yourdon explains what it depends on, and what to do about it."

Robert D. Austin
Associate Professor, Harvard Business School
Co-Author of ARTFUL MAKING

"Is outsourcing a bane, a boon, or a bother? Yes. Ed Yourdon takes on this vastly complicated issue and makes it all crystal clear."

Tom DeMarco
The Atlantic Systems Guild

"OUTSOURCE cuts through the outsourcing hysteria to present a balanced view of why outsourcing is occurring, how it is likely to impact people's lives, and how to best prepare career-wise for the new realities it introduces. Whether you are a buyer or provider of outsourcing services, or an individual whose career may be affected by those services, Ed Yourdon offers valuable insights that you can immediately put to use."

Ian Hayes
Industry Analyst and President, Clarity Consulting, Inc.

"Ed Yourdon's book on international outsourcing is a major work on an important topic. I think the book will become required reading for all CIOs and officers of U.S. companies that produce software in quantity. As usual with Ed's work, the research is extensive, and the coverage is thorough. Ed has visited many of the international outsourcing labs, so he also offers firsthand observations."

Capers Jones
Chief Scientist, Software Productivity Research LLC

"Ed Yourdon has produced a comprehensive sequel to his 1992 prophecy, Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. His views were much maligned; yet he turned out to be right. To cope with challenges ahead, this book should be required reading by computer professionals who wish to prosper in their jobs."

Paul A. Strassmann
A CIO for 43 years (General Foods, Kraft, Xerox,
Department of Defense, NASA)

"Entertaining and understandable, Yourdon's OUTSOURCE examines the current situation from sociological, economic, and historical perspectives, providing individuals, employers, and policymakers practical insights and advice centered on increasing competitiveness and taking individual responsibility. OUTSOURCE is must-read for those who intend to survive and thrive in this hyper-competitive global economy. It's just what the doctor should have ordered."

Leon A. Kappelman, Ph.D.
Farrington Professor of Information Systems
Director, Information Systems Research Center
College of Business, University of North Texas

"'Nothing personal, just business' has a new ring—and it's a dangerous wake-up call to a harsh side of globalization—a wake-up call that will change your life, your company, our future... Early readers of OUTSOURCE will have the advantage in the job shake-outs and company restructurings that are accelerating now!"

Mo Bjornestad
CEO, SensorWave Corporation

If you run a business, what should you outsource (and what shouldn't you)?

If you're a knowledge worker (inside or outside IT), how can you protect yourself?

How will outsourcing evolve next? What do those changes mean to you?

Outsourcing is not just the #1 issue facing IT organizations: It's driving a profound transformation throughout American business. Whether you're an executive or a knowledge worker, the decisions you make about outsourcing can make or break your future. This book brings together all the information and insight you need to make those decisions—and make them the right ones.

Once, outsourcing was largely limited to IT. Suddenly, it touches everyone from telemarketers to tax preparers, radiologists to market researchers. No American company or knowledge worker can ignore its challenge. Now, widely acclaimed author and consultant Ed Yourdon helps you understand the challenge of outsourcing—and meet it.

IT pros and knowledge workers: Protect your career

Eight realistic strategies for surviving the outsourcing revolution

How to compete with the entire low-cost world and win

Quantify, protect, and enhance your personal ñvalue propositionî

Executives: Make smarter outsourcing decisions

What to outsource, how to do it right, and when to avoid it

Outsourcing, the next generation: Beyond programmers

From telemarketers to accountants, clinical trials to market research

The politics and geopolitics of outsourcing

Backlash at home, upheaval overseas, and a plan for renewal

Along the way, Yourdon assesses the politics and economics of outsourcing, long-term implications for both suppliers and buyers of knowledge-based services, and much more.

Yourdon has been writing about outsourcing since before it had a name. In this book, he doesn't just predict your future, he helps you take control of it.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131475711
• ISBN-13: 978-0131475717
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,134,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than I expected, October 12, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: OUTSOURCE: Competing in the Global Productivity Race (Hardcover)

I started reading this book with no high expectations. Yourdon is best known (notorious?) for the loud and repeated claims about the Y2K crisis, prior to 2000. He was hilariously wrong, though he certainly did well out of consulting and convening conferences over it. So I anticipated more of the same puffery here.

But gradually and grudgingly, I raised my opinion of this book. There are no shrill polemics. No hysterical call to arms. Instead, you get a sober (and sombre) study of offshoring. Yourdon goes calmly through the driving forces. He points out that the ongoing improvements in computer hardware (Moore's Law) and communications show no signs of abating. It is these which have made offshoring economic to date. And if those trends continue, offshoring can become even more persuasive.

Yourdon suggests that for you as an individual, try to quantify your productivity if you are an American information worker. He pointedly does not restrict his audience to IT. Then see if your productivity justifies your higher cost, relative to an offshore worker. If not, you should upgrade or even change professions. He makes a very cynical but cogent observation that if you do not quantify your own productivity, someone else might do it for you, like an offshore vendor, who will not have your interests at heart.

For an American company, Yourdon recommends a focus on Business Process Engineering. The book is thankfully short on acronyms and buzzwords. But it does advocate trying a radical improvement in your workflow, in order to stave off offshoring.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential, quick, but comprehensive overview to Outsourcing, October 30, 2004

By 

Chris J. Stakutis "Technologist" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: OUTSOURCE: Competing in the Global Productivity Race (Hardcover)

"OutSource" is a fast-read book that rapidly covers all of the
important ground regarding outsourcing today. Useful directly to
us knowledge workers, the book is also a must-read for any
business manager in just about any American company.
Yourdon points out a vast array of just-being-considered for
outsourcing disciplines. He also carefully goes through the
various issues of quality and long-distance management and how to
embrace these challenges. Although outsourcing is not new,
elements of the game are changing and the foreign fields remain
fertile and ever-suitable to a growing list of activities.
Yourdon explores government's torn role in this fate and he
continually provides both the knowledge worker (us) and our
employers with insight and advice. The book is a must read for
any modern worker as job-fluidity will only increase with
technology and we need to know how to cope and how to exploit.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide for anyone whose job may be outsourced, December 28, 2004

By 

Ben Rothke "Author of 'Computer Security: 20 ... (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: OUTSOURCE: Competing in the Global Productivity Race (Hardcover)

Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race is a persuasive overview of the outsourcing phenomenon. Author Edward Yourdon's premise is that outsourcing is not going to disappear anytime soon, and -- given the success that many companies have begun enjoying during the past few years -- it is not likely to level off anytime soon. Outsourcing is now a mainstream phenomenon and is affecting more and more workers, in nearly every knowledge-based sector. In a nutshell, this is Yourdon's book of how to prepare yourself for the inevitable."

For those Americans who would hope their representatives in Washington would get involved and pass laws to stem the flow of jobs overseas, there is little that Washington will likely do to help knowledge-based workers whose jobs are in danger of being offshored. While the loss of jobs is a crisis to many of us, Yourdon makes note of the oil crisis of the early 1970s and a speech that Jimmy Carter made in April 1977. Carter said "If we fail to act soon we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions." Nearly 30 years after Carter made that speech, oil is at an all-time high and nothing has been significantly done to reduce our dependency on oil; or to find a better solution.

If Congress is apathetic when it comes to an effective energy policy that affects an entire nation, it is clear that preserving the jobs of C and Java programmers is likely to be at the bottom of any congressman's to-do list. In 2005, national security, Medicare and Iraq are just a few of the issues that seem to be far more pressing to the nation than the loss of programmers.

The book is written about outsourcing in general, but has a heavy slant to programmers whose jobs have been outsourced to India. The prime advantage India has over other countries with cheap labor is a large base of workers that speak English. While the salaries in China, for example, are even lower than in India, the language barrier is significant.

The main claims of proponents of outsourcing are of increased productivity and major cost savings. Whether these claims are real is to a degree immaterial, as the perception among CIOs is that outsourcing has an immediate cost savings. This is primarily due to the fact that the salaries and benefit costs of overseas programmers are radically less than those of their U.S. counterparts.

From a productivity and efficiency perspective, many Indian firms are CMM level-5 certified, something that their U.S. counterparts can't attest to. At the end of the day, is better and cheaper code produced in Bangalore and Mumbai? Yourdon states that it is hard to find hard and fast answers. But with outsourcing the rage, there is the perception that Indian firms are more productive, formalized and efficient than their US counterparts is being accepted as fact. For many, perception is reality, and the reality is that jobs are being sent overseas by the thousands.

Outsource:Competing in the Global Productivity Race is written for (and beneficial to) anyone who feels that his job may be in danger of being outsourced. The book is well-written and pragmatic, and Yourdon notes that there are no simple answers to be found, nor are there any obvious choices. The book guides the reader who is working in a knowledge-based position to better determine where the trends in outsourcing are going and how to best save their job and simultaneously prepare for the inevitable. It is not that every knowledge-based job will be outsourced, but rather that the potential exists that every job could be outsourced. With that, it behooves everyone to get make sure they are prepared.

In 1992, Yourdon wrote Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. In the book, he predicted that U.S. programmers would "suffer the fate of the Dodo bird" as companies shifted jobs from American workers to those overseas to take advantage of lower pay, less labor regulations and higher productivity. Yourdon admits his prediction was partially incorrect. U.S. programmers have not gone the way of the Dodo bird and hiring is resuming; but in spite of everything, huge numbers of jobs are being sent overseas.

While Decline and Fall of the American Programmer was focused exclusively on technology workers, Yourdon writes that every knowledge-based job is vulnerable to being outsourced. From radiologists to tax preparers, telemarketers to architects, and more.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of Outsource is the composed manner in which Yourdon writes. Outsourcing is a controversial, political and extremely emotional topic, and Yourdon provides a balanced view of the outsourcing phenomena.

One of the solutions suggested to stemming the flow of jobs overseas is protectionist federal regulations. Yourdon believes that such measures are doomed to fail, in that you can't protect knowledge-based worked in the same way that steel and agriculture products can be protected. Yourdon admits that there might be some short-term benefits to a protectionist strategy, but will fail in the long-term. His view is that protectionism is simply blaming someone else for the existence of competition; and such an approach does not solve the problem. His solution, and the overall advice in the book, is to make each and every American knowledge worker more prepared to face competition from overseas.

Of the books 10 chapters, the most compelling is chapter 6, which provides seven strategies in which to deal with the threat of outsourcing. The first is to be proactive, with the last being to consider a career change. Yourdon does not promise and secrets or miracles in the chapter and attempts to provide some common, yet often overlooked, sense.

Outsource ends with the following quote: "I was taught very early that I would have to depend entirely upon myself; that my future lay in my own hands." This book shows you how.