Last blog post on Managing Offshore IT

This week, I got an email from our anchor at the corporate blog team that read

Hi Mohan
You’ve not been writing on the MOIT blog, wanted to check with you if you plan to write or I should get the blog archived.
Thanks/Rahil

Reading the note, I realized how long it had been since I posted on this blog; I obviously had a decision to make: should I get this blog archived or should I get back to continually posting here?

It has been nearly three years since I started penning my thoughts in my avatar of a corporate blogger. My corporate blogging odyssey began when a friend and colleague, Vijay TSR, who was then heading the internet strategy of our corporate marketing team, prompted me to join the bandwagon. He helped define the framework for Infosys’ corporate blogs and had the back-office operations enabled and got me started. Looking back, Infosys’ corporate blog was among the first wave of serious corporate blogging attempts by Indian IT majors.

I began sharing my views and viewpoints on technology management, consulting along with anecdotes and practical case studies. During the time, I also exposed readers to some of my personal issues and challenges. I am thankful for the following, ideation and commentary my blog generated from readers online and offline.

Trying to get myself to post a “last blog”  has not been easy. This effort reminded me of the memorable "last lecture" by Randy Pausch (A Beloved Professor Delivers The Lecture of a Lifetime).

This past week I have also been musing: Has the world of offshoring and offshore outsourcing changed a lot in the past three years?

Yes and No.

Yes, if you consider the fact that sourcing deals large and small periodically continue to be inked. And yes, if you count the occasional mergers, buyouts and other consolidation either at client end or of sourcing firms. The occasional blunders and even rarer (but catastrophic) corporate scandals leading to a lot of soul searching and finger pointing.
I would also think that No, the world of offshoring hasn’t transformed radically in the past few years: Last I checked, the business models are still about adding people offshore/ nearshore/ anyshore to do the same/similar work that would have otherwise been done onsite by the client or at a client location. If anything, the models have only been maturing as the people in the industry mature.  I guess at this point the business of sourcing and offshoring is more about gradual evolution than revolution. 

This is not to say that newer technology paradigms and automation in software development and delivery in horizon couldn’t lead to drastic changes. 

Before I signoff, a special vote of thanks to Vijay TSR, Rahil Arora and Infosys’ Corporate Marketing team for the excellent architecture and support of our corporate blogs and platform that enables road-warriors and global employees like self to just muse and post.

May the Force be with you

- Mohan (Linkedin)

Ps: I will continue to express my two cents on globalisation on my personal blog (Globalization and Me), and sporadically add to discussions on Infosys’ Enterprise Architecture blog.

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