Indian outsourcing of IT jobs gets massive backlash in UK

pmaitra

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Indian outsourcing of IT jobs gets massive backlash in UK

Indian outsourcing of IT jobs is once again in the limelight, after a week-long IT debacle at Royal Bank of Scotland and Natwest, that left customers locked out of their accounts for a week, is estimated to cost the bank a large chunk of cash in fees.

Shares slumped 9.1 %, meaning over £1.7billion was wiped off taxpayers' 82% stake in the bank since the problem started last Thursday.

RBS has cancelled its plush corporate hospitality expenses at Wimbledon, chief executive Stephen Hester has announced senior management will face the music, and the bank, which was bailed out by the UK government and is part taxpayer-owned, faces an FSA investigation.

Reports in the UK media peaked Wednesday quoting "bank insiders" as saying that the entire problem was kicked off by an inexperienced CA-7 IT operative at RBS' Hyderabad back office, who wiped out vast swathes of crucial data while performing a routine upgrade.

Ca-7, a routine banking software produced by Computer Associates, is reported to be at the root of the problem. According to some reports, RBS is considering legal action against CA, an American backbone It provider as well.

The link between an alleged inexperienced Indian in Hyderabad and a major meltdown of taxpayer value in the UK, has kicked off a massive backlash against outsourcing to India in the UK media.

As a senior Indian IT professional points out: "Most of the explosive reports are not in the financial or technical papers, but in the general media." In the midst of a double dip recession, while outsourcing may not be as bad a word in the UK as it is in US, local media is quick to look for a scapegoat to blame.

RBS officials, including chief executive Stephen Hester, categorically stated that the problem has nothing to do with outsourcing, in a number of official statements and TV interviews. "We have been clear we will fully investigate the causes of this incident. But we hope people will understand that right now our complete focus is on fixing this problem and helping our customers. The management and execution of the batch process is based in Edinburgh, UK at the Fettes Row Data Centre, as is all of the current work to resolve the problem."

"It has been unnecessarily linked to outsourcing. Accidents can happen anywhere. The unions are trying to make it an outsourcing issue," a senior Indian It observer told ET.

The Union, however, says it has not. While almost all Uk media reports have gone to town reporting that Unite, a major Union in UK, which represents RBS employees, blamed job-cuts and shifting of jobs to India for the debacle, Saba Edwards, a spokesperson for Unite, told ET that the union is not blaming Indian outsourcers.

"That is not what we have said. Other have said it, but not us," she told ET. Unite's statement, available on their website, says: "Following some 30,000 job losses at the bank and extensive outsourcing of functions, the union has grave concerns that staffing challenges are exacerbating the problems facing the bank." Its full statement is available on its website, and does not mention India.

There seems to be some confusion as to what operations RBS actually has in Hyderabad. Bank insiders told ET that RBS does not have any operations in Hyderabad, which totally contradicts all media reports in London.

UK media reports said that the bank had independently advertised and hired CA-7 experts in India, after slashing jobs in the UK. Som Mittal, the president of Nasscom said that "The company itself has said it is not an outsourcing issue and their main centre is in the UK. Such incidents happen once in a while, which gets technologically resolved."

A senior Indian IT professional in the UK say that this is an explosive situation, because the huge problem in RBS can quickly be shifted to blaming Indian IT, given the current economic and political environment. As a senior UK media observer not in the banking industry put it: "It's easy to find a foreign hand and shift the attention from one's own errors."

ET VIEW:

Both Nasscomm and the Indian government need to engage with RBS and the UK government. As RBS is largely funded by UK taxpayers, media perception is critical to ensure that Indian IT professionals do not end up as a scapegoat for an internal problem in a global bank. The investigation has yet to take place; yet Indian IT is being convicted by trial of popular media. The information in the UK press is not coming from outer space - who are these "insiders" blaming a lone Hyderabadi?

Source: Indian outsourcing of IT jobs gets massive backlash in UK - Page2 - The Economic Times
 

trackwhack

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Sometime back in I had posted about this in another UK thread - http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/europe-russia/31769-why-do-british-people-have-such-pathetic-attitude.html

The Five Stages of Grief - Kübler-Ross model

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

The Brits are somewhere between denial and anger right now.
Now the Brits have clearly moved on from Denial to Anger. Once in the second stage, you recognize that denial cannot continue. Denial is replaced by misplaced feelings of rage and envy. The easiest way to direct it is to find someone else to blame.

Which is exactly what is happening here. Is there anything that the Brits dont blame on immigration and outsourcing??? :rofl:
 

panduranghari

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Would you rather pay 9000£ per annum or 55000£ per annum as wages? Moving jobs to India makes sense on all levels for the CEO.
 

p2prada

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Any British dude reading this: If you are willing to work anywhere between 8 to 16 hours a day at any time of the day and any day of the week(even the weekends) at 25% of minimum wage in the UK, then be my guest and take your job back.

Now sit back and think what you can do to beat that kind of a guy.
 

satish007

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And the winner is.... the Philippines...:shocked:
PH is taking many outsourcing jobs from India, but not from UK.
British have very bad temper, if their business are not good, they will say it is IT's fault.
any IT fault, will be zoom in. it is them found SLA to deal with the anry customers, India even US will never need this weird hopeless agreement.
UK, loser, stay your small island, enjoy yourself.
 
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Bangalorean

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Huh - if a mishap happens in normal cases, it is an "oversight" or "human error" or whatever. But if it happens to be in India, it is because of the "damn Indians".

Morons.
 

Mad Indian

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I have posted the thread in ASS forum and added a comment too. Lets see how the Barbarians there react:heh:
 

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