Outsourcing consultant, Outsourced
I am a consultant for a software management company. I am working under contract as an Information Systems Business Analyst for a Biotech company in Southern California. I signed a four month contract which has been extended through March, 09. I support all business to business virtual collaborations.
My job is to extend the company’s wide area network so that external business partners can have access to the company’s internal applications. With all that said, over the last 2.5 years in this position, I have gathered the requirements to deploy internal applications to offshore companies. This company is outsourcing jobs virtually to India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the EU and sprinkles of jobs have been spread out geographically to the rest of the world.
The outsourcing action has been slow and deliberate. Last year, the company laid off close to 1500 staff and reassigned thousands more jobs to clinical research organizations. Job titles from clinical data entry operators, clinical study managers to software developers and help desk analysts have been outsourced to other US companies. Those companies are Global companies who have subsequently sent many of the jobs off shore.
Not only is the work going off shore and to the rest of world, the company recently signed an agreement to outsource their information systems infrastructure to IBM. IBM will, in turn, send many of the IT jobs to India.
Guess what, my group has been dissolved. My contract expires In March and it appears my job has been outsourced. My second line manager suggested I send my resume to IBM. Before the mail left my inbox to theirs, the HR rep for the transition promptly returned my resume, noting contractors were not in scope at this time and they were not interviewing the consultants under the terms of the current contract. This is an extremely humiliating experience. Not only to work the job, but to have worked myself out of a job.
I’m 49 years old, middle class. I have worked my way up from a secretary, executive assistant, help desk analyst to a business analyst via studying and on the job training. Now, I’m searching for jobs in my field without a business or computer science degree.
I have interviewed for project manager positions and have been told that I’m too technical and vice versa for project manager positions, not enough experience.
I’m looking forward to the transition to the new Obama-Biden administration. Corporate America needs to cease the outsourcing of virtual jobs. The people working those jobs offshore are not paid a comparable salary. Further, if the job can be conducted virtually, those are ideal positions to reduce our carbon footprint. It would help remove cars off the street and promote of valid telecommuting opportunities.
Tags: outsourced consultant business to business, outsourcing
