I have been actually pondering this for software for some time now. I used to manage a medium sized development team that was concurrently distributed between the Virginia, Argentina, Ukraine and Pakistan. I've always thought that the amount of communication overhead due to language/layers and time lag caused by that actually increased the cost of the product.
For example, during the day, i'd get requirements hand it out to the leads. If the lead is at PK, then guess what, i'm getting up at 3am to talk to them. Sending emails wont cut it. He then has to translate to a different language and hands it out to his devs. Thats several degrees of separation between the analyst and the dev. I've always believed that what was accomplished could have taken half that team if they were all local.
I think software development insourcing is ripe for this in the U.S. There is a large cost of living divide between NY, SF and Missoula, MT and the mid lvl salaries i've seen here would go a LOT further in those parts of the country and the time zone and language issues are minimal.
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I have been actually pondering this for software for some time now. I used to manage a medium sized development team that was concurrently distributed between the Virginia, Argentina, Ukraine and Pakistan. I've always thought that the amount of communication overhead due to language/layers and time lag caused by that actually increased the cost of the product.
For example, during the day, i'd get requirements hand it out to the leads. If the lead is at PK, then guess what, i'm getting up at 3am to talk to them. Sending emails wont cut it. He then has to translate to a different language and hands it out to his devs. Thats several degrees of separation between the analyst and the dev. I've always believed that what was accomplished could have taken half that team if they were all local.
I think software development insourcing is ripe for this in the U.S. There is a large cost of living divide between NY, SF and Missoula, MT and the mid lvl salaries i've seen here would go a LOT further in those parts of the country and the time zone and language issues are minimal.