Issa: Edison's use of visa program 'deeply disturbing'

[eolesen]

I was hoping for some input from our IT guru, Mr. E.
What say you Mr. E. ?

I say that this topic is about ten years too late. The title of the topic and newpaper article isn't entirely true, which then has to affect the discussions that have followed...

Edison isn't using the visa program. They're outsourcing. That's bad enough, but the fact that they considered US vendors says that they would have outsourced the functions regardless.

Sure, people do lose their jobs in the process, but the fact is that public utilities and airlines (along with some other industries) have a hard time balancing out the cost of the IT skills they need and the amount of work they have for them to be doing.

Just as one example, a competent Oracle DBA or OBIEE developer is worth between $120-180K in the marketplace.

In the airline space, that's a managing director or VP salary. In a company as heavily unionized as California Edison probably is, bringing in people at that rate of pay can and does create issues with the unions.

The utilization issue may or may not be the bigger issue. If you look at the workload for some specialties, most companies don't need a full time DBA or OBIEE guy. They just need slices of their time, so faced with keeping someone on payroll year-round and offering benefits, or paying for only the time that's needed, which do you think a company is going to want to choose?

Start throwing in the dozens of specialties you wind up with in a service company, and going with someone like HP or Tata isn't the worst alternative. They do pay better, but you're also expected to be billable (just like consulting, accounting, and lawyers).

I don't like it, but it's a fact in the industry. The upside is that some of the IT jobs bring in pretty good pay. The downside is that outsource vendors don't typically provide benefits or directly employ the techies. They're contractors. Then again, if you're averaging $120-180K in billable hours, buying insurance on the open market isn't a bad an option, and I don't know too many people who would knowingly go work for half the contractor rate just so they can say they're directly employed and get company paid benefits.

All that said, for every example of a company outsourcing like this, there's at least one who is re-insourcing IT functions. Specifically within the airlines, AA, UA, and DL had huge pieces of their IT work outsourced to EDS and the GDS operators ten years ago. Today, all three are back to insourcing almost all of their customer facing IT, as well as large portions of the background stuff you don't see anymore.

 

[delldude]

Common core has no material. Common core is a standard. It is up to the schools districts how they wish to teach it.

 
Its a very nice platform for the gov't to disseminate propaganda to little mush minds. 

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Its a very nice platform for the gov't to disseminate propaganda to little mush minds. 

Common core has no material. Common core is a standard. It is up to the schools districts how they wish to teach it.

You are wasting your breath. Ms Tree has permanent blinders on.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

They're outsourcing. That's bad enough, but the fact that they considered US vendors says that they would have outsourced the functions regardless.

You actually really believe that US companies were being considered? I do not. I think they stated that for PR reasons. They can CLAIM that but it does not make it true.
 

Sure, people do lose their jobs in the process, but the fact is that public utilities and airlines (along with some other industries) have a hard time balancing out the cost of the IT skills they need and the amount of work they have for them to be doing.

IT makes good money because what they do in few numbers impacts every other person in the company and it takes a long time to develop their skill set.
 
If you have no IT department or worse a poor one (that creates more problems than they fix) the impact to the rest of the workforce can far exceed the cost of retaining competent help. 
 
Consulting is an option but if you are a company that uses proprietary software, handles extremely sensitive information, or a company that is selling services (like hosting for instance) and IT issues have an immediate and direct impact on your customer that option is a lot less appealing. 

 

[signals]

Common core has no material. Common core is a standard. It is up to the schools districts how they wish to teach it.

The problem is that parents rely(or expect) on teachers to teach, discipline and raise their kids, while they do nothing but point the finger of blame because their child is stupid.

 

[Ms Tree]

You are wasting your breath. Ms Tree has permanent blinders on.

No, really.  Common core is a standard.  There is absolutely no curriculum attached to the standard. 
 
Here are the stanmdards.  Read it for your self.
 
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/
 
It is up to the school how they achieve the standard.

 

[signals]

The standard sucks because of our MULTICULTURAL changing society. If ENGLISH is a second language to most students, the 'standard' suffers. If students play hooky the 'standard' suffers. If students get BULLIED the 'standard' suffers.

The pattern is that it holds the teachers totally responsible for reasons beyond their control. This gives idle parents a valid argument to not getting involved with their precious children.

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

You are wasting your breath. Fa la Li la ti da do is waiting on his next handout to decide what his curriculum will be.

 

[delldude]

You are wasting your breath. Ms Tree has permanent blinders on.

 
Me and Tree are experts on common core.
 
Just think, now we have these standards in place, pushed by the federal gov't, all they have to do now to turn it into a propaganda arm is make regulations that the school districts must comply with when writing their curriculum.

 

[Zom JFK]

Deleted

 

[eolesen]

You actually really believe that US companies were being considered? I do not. I think they stated that for PR reasons. They can CLAIM that but it does not make it true.

If you say so. I've just been working in IT management & consulting for the past 15 years, so what would I know?...
 

Consulting is an option but if you are a company that uses proprietary software, handles extremely sensitive information, or a company that is selling services (like hosting for instance) and IT issues have an immediate and direct impact on your customer that option is a lot less appealing. 

Really? Airline res systems are about as proprietary as it gets as far as business critical software goes and containing sensitive information, and yet they're almost entirely outsourced across the industry.

Payroll data is equally sensitive and business critical, and yet companies like ADP process what I'd guess is over 80% of the paychecks in the country.

You might want to rethink your premise there a bit.

 

[xUT]

I say that this topic is about ten years too late. The title of the topic and newpaper article isn't entirely true, which then has to affect the discussions that have followed...

Edison isn't using the visa program. They're outsourcing. That's bad enough, but the fact that they considered US vendors says that they would have outsourced the functions regardless.

Sure, people do lose their jobs in the process, but the fact is that public utilities and airlines (along with some other industries) have a hard time balancing out the cost of the IT skills they need and the amount of work they have for them to be doing.

Just as one example, a competent Oracle DBA or OBIEE developer is worth between $120-180K in the marketplace.

In the airline space, that's a managing director or VP salary. In a company as heavily unionized as California Edison probably is, bringing in people at that rate of pay can and does create issues with the unions.

The utilization issue may or may not be the bigger issue. If you look at the workload for some specialties, most companies don't need a full time DBA or OBIEE guy. They just need slices of their time, so faced with keeping someone on payroll year-round and offering benefits, or paying for only the time that's needed, which do you think a company is going to want to choose?

Start throwing in the dozens of specialties you wind up with in a service company, and going with someone like HP or Tata isn't the worst alternative. They do pay better, but you're also expected to be billable (just like consulting, accounting, and lawyers).

I don't like it, but it's a fact in the industry. The upside is that some of the IT jobs bring in pretty good pay. The downside is that outsource vendors don't typically provide benefits or directly employ the techies. They're contractors. Then again, if you're averaging $120-180K in billable hours, buying insurance on the open market isn't a bad an option, and I don't know too many people who would knowingly go work for half the contractor rate just so they can say they're directly employed and get company paid benefits.

All that said, for every example of a company outsourcing like this, there's at least one who is re-insourcing IT functions. Specifically within the airlines, AA, UA, and DL had huge pieces of their IT work outsourced to EDS and the GDS operators ten years ago. Today, all three are back to insourcing almost all of their customer facing IT, as well as large portions of the background stuff you don't see anymore.

 
Thanks for the input E!
 
Living in the area, I had quite a good side business creating custom mom/pop automated GUI interfaces.
When the the H1-B hit the area, they would do part time work for $25 an hour or less.
Killed my business.
Oh well, it is what it is...
 
Take Care,
B) xUT

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

If you say so. I've just been working in IT management & consulting for the past 15 years, so what would I know?...

In what capacity?
 
I have no idea what you know. For all I know you work for an IT staffing service finding low cost labor for Help Desk positions scanning resumes for buzz words.......
 
Then again you could could design SQL server architecture (which I would like to learn about myself).
 
I stand by what I said. I doubt very seriously any US based companies were seriously being considered. I believe their inclusion on the roster was more PR than anything.
 
That is my opinion.
 

Really? Airline res systems are about as proprietary as it gets as far as business critical software goes and containing sensitive information, and yet they're almost entirely outsourced across the industry.

Payroll data is equally sensitive and business critical, and yet companies like ADP process what I'd guess is over 80% of the paychecks in the country.

You might want to rethink your premise there a bit.

I did not say companies could NOT outsource, I said there are negatives that come with that decision.

 

[eolesen]

Oh, just the past five or six years doing IT strategy consulting (essentially helping companies come to the decision on whether insourcing or outsourcing was the right decision) and global sales engineering support for one of the two largest IT providers in the travel industry...

Part of the strategy work involved knowing who was in the marketplace, and their price points. Getting the work domestically can be cheaper in the long run, particularly when you're dealing with language and cultural barriers.

Ten years ago, everyone was rushing to send call center work to South America or Asia. A good portion of that has come back onshore. Still outsourced in a lot of cases, but being handled by people who speak and understand American, as opposed to simply speaking English.

You leave me with the perception that you see outsourcing decisions as always being cost driven. They aren't. You also have to consider quality, speed, and continuity. All of that gets weighted depending on what the organization is doing. What you do with a helpdesk for the people running Excel & Powerpoint isn't going to be decided on the same set of criteria or weightings as with the system that manages your work cards and PM schedules, or as your general ledger.

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

design SQL server architecture (which I would like to learn about myself).

There is always hope. Maybe you can get another handout for some additional free training.