Agreed. I work for a large US pharma. We tried outsourcing 10-15 years back and learned two things: 1) you will lose IP by the bucketsful if you outsource to certain countries, and 2) you will have a tough time retaining any kind of institutional memory from outsourcers since their staff moves around onto tasks for other companies or change jobs too fast to even build basic memory of your company's needs or infrastructure.
In the end, we opened offices of our own in less expensive parts pf the US and the world where wages were lower. But since then, wages have risen substantially in several of those sites, making even this strategy largely pointless. Not to mention other challenges like distributing workgroups and communications across 5 time zones, some of which are 12 hours apart from our HQ.
I'm not sure where we go next, since outsourcing and out-officing have both failed to live up to expectations. Regardless, I don't see remote work as solving these problems. Unless those wages are dirt cheap, remoting more staff will only make our past problems worse.
Is this large US pharma ludicrously profitable like many pharmaceutical companies? Why can’t they just hire employees closer to home base and pay them a better salary?
In the end, we opened offices of our own in less expensive parts pf the US and the world where wages were lower. But since then, wages have risen substantially in several of those sites, making even this strategy largely pointless. Not to mention other challenges like distributing workgroups and communications across 5 time zones, some of which are 12 hours apart from our HQ.
I'm not sure where we go next, since outsourcing and out-officing have both failed to live up to expectations. Regardless, I don't see remote work as solving these problems. Unless those wages are dirt cheap, remoting more staff will only make our past problems worse.