Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race

by Edward Yourdon

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131475711
• ISBN13: 9780131475717
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Great Overview, missed action items

I really liked the book's coverage of the issues and the consequences. I liked the comparison of government's stand on outsourcing to the Jimmy Carter energy plan. Retraining will not be enough. (Retrain for what?) Outsourcing will get bigger and affect more people and government will do nothing until it is too late for many. Author's bottom line, Look around and justify your job. Make sure your company can survive the new world. If it can't, change companies or jobs or go into business for yourself. Not a pleasant outlook but very realsitic. I'm glad I read the book before I am outsourced again.

Outsource

A sobering and instructive review of the troubling outsourcing trend and it's implications for all knowledge workers in the US, UK and other developed nations. An entertaining and practical read of your risks and what you can do about them. In the style of all of Yourdon's books, this is a practical, down-to-Earth read with positive value for those who have been outsourced and those who might be line for it and don't even know it. Another timely edition by this highly readable author. Five stars!

Essential, quick, but comprehensive overview to Outsourcing

"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.

Should be required reading for knowledge workers...

Last night I finished the book Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race by Edward Yourdon (Prentice Hall). I'm highly impressed with Yourdon's treatment of this subject. Chapter list: Introduction; Key Factors Driving Outsourcing; Today's Situation in IT; Additional Forms of Outsourcing; Likely Trends for the Next Decade; Implications for the Individual; Implications for Companies Supplying Knowledge-Based Services; Implications for Companies Buying Knowledge-Based Products or Services; Implications for Government and Society; Conclusion; Index Since outsourcing (especially off-shoring) is such an emotional subject, it's hard to find a book that doesn't quickly descend into histrionics and hand-wringing. And in the past, Yourdon has had a tendency to paint doom and gloom scenarios (like Y2K) and hype them. But in this book, the whole subject of outsourcing is treated in an analytical and realistic way. Yourdon accepts the fact that the American consumer wants cheap, high quality items, and that companies have to consider outsourcing to provide those products. When foreign knowledge workers can be found for a fraction of the cost of US workers, it's hard to ignore. So by acknowledging the reality of outsourcing, Yourdon moves on to what you can do as an individual to protect yourself. To me, this is where the book shines. Yourdon lays out a number of steps that a knowledge worker in the US can take to protect their career and weather the trends that are becoming more common. This is the only (in my opinion) rational approach to take. You can yell and whine about how companies are unfair, but ultimately your career and ability to pay your rent is up to you. Taking Yourdon's advice may not stop you from being off-shored or outsourced, but you'll be ready for it if it does happen, and you'll be able to keep moving along with your life. Recommended reading for everyone that earns their living by what they know...

Better than I expected

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.