Thread regarding Open Text Corp. layoffs

Offshore in India may seem like a cost-saving measure, but it is destroying the company.

Another reason why the tech industry makes people feel a sense of degeneration is that the approach to doing things has changed since the rise of Indian assistance.
US engineers who excel in the technology industry mostly have a good education, possess a certain level of technical or scientific expertise, and enjoy truly thinking about and solving problems from a technical perspective.

However, at present, aside from resolving the problem, the more crucial task is to quickly identify it and find someone to address it promptly. With the advancement of semiconductor and various other technologies, the product's profit margin is shrinking. When several minor issues accumulate, they can easily escalate into a major problem.

In this instance, there should be several different units that complement each other to enhance their capabilities or improve the fault tolerance of the subsequent system. However, this is not how the "Indian Gang" thinks.

What they do is to cold-shoulder or ignore all their problems, magnify and highlight all the other side's problems. All the data can actually be managed more or less, or in their own words. You can observe that during project collaboration or handover meetings, they remain "quiet". Even if they have the resources for the project, they will not voluntarily share. When you ask them to do something, such as reviewing some infrastructure settings or security settings, they will excuse themselves by saying they need a lot of time (delayed and delayed).

However, when they request something, they tend to deliberately emphasize that "this is extremely important", but the truth is not like that. You can also notice this in Change Management meeting. If the host is an English native speaker or a white person, the Indians will become very weak. On the contrary, if the other party's English is not an American accent or not a white person, they will boldly demand the resources they need. You can get a rough idea of this by looking at our Aviator or Magellan projects.

With this approach, there is no doubt that the work mood, sense of mission, sense of accomplishment, or even the quality of the product will surely decline all the way. Check recent incidents (not only) about Ollie or other issues. You will never hear that the solution they adopted is in accordance with the SOP. They don't have an SOP. They hide things but highlight their fake efforts.

Sometimes, I even question whether there is truly a top tech company that owes its success to India. When a company begins to prioritize "good reports" over "effective problem-solving," the tech culture starts to decline. And we engineers are the first to sense this deterioration.

by
| 1851 views | | 6 replies (last July 20) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1k0ey1n88

6 replies (most recent on top)

Hire indian Mark and save millions.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @m6+1k0ey1n88

The complex situation at OpenText, particularly concerning the offshoring of jobs to India, can be attributed to several intertwined factors. While millions of talented Indian engineers are available at lower costs, the company reportedly haven't hired from the "best engineers" to keep expenses down, and haven't effectively retained existing talented staff who then leave, resulting in higher costs and an average or below-average workforce lacking historical product knowledge or context.

Ultimately, the initial decision to offshore was made by "us Americans," suggesting a broader organizational failure to value their own domestic workforce.

I and my Indian colleagues discuss often and the current state is further exacerbated by the newly hired leadership in India in Cyberres division, perceived as solely focused on "user stories and defects" rather than connecting with employees, understanding their challenges, or providing support, potentially fostering a "yes boss culture" that prioritizes pleasing higher-ups over tangible value.

This, coupled with new, very small Indian teams supporting large products, leads to them being "overloaded." The shared concern among both American and Indian colleagues is that cybersecurity products like ArcSight will see a "heavy decline in revenue" due to this poor leadership, ultimately leaving the company with unmotivated, low-knowledge, average staff in India who will also eventually "jump the ship."

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @h3+1k0ey1n88

I do agree that outsourcing is bad and an option for weak management.
However, Id--ts can be found in all races. Myself included. My wife called me a racist and I was shocked but I am hoping I can change and not generalized people.
En Vogue - Free Your Mind.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @dt+1k0ey1n88

Everything at OpenText is done at the lowest cost possible. There are NO groups that have the ability to attract top talent since ALL starting salaries are low. Mark runs the company like a Dollar General store where there are the least amount of low paid employees to get the job done. There is excellent talent in India, Eastern Europe and the Philippines. However the current top talent is leaving because they don’t see a future here. Look at Mark’s resume. His IT philosophy is to acquire and cut costs. In the past, when his companies when bad, he left. However, given his age and track records not sure he would have an easy time finding a new gig. So he will stay as long as he can and the board will keep him as long as the stock price doesn’t go below $20. Mark, the ELT and board all lose if the company gets acquired so they are going to run the company into the ground just like Eddie Lambert is doing with Sears. They executives all make money but the employees suffer. Mark wants “limitless” AI bots to do all the work with hope that we all train them before we get let go.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @c5+1k0ey1n88

I’m sure there are many companies competing for top engineers in India. Market forces are market forces. Is Opentext offering competitive salaries that would attract the top talent?

Perhaps it’s not really them being Indian, but about hiring for the lowest cost, rather than the top talent.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @b1+1k0ey1n88

I once urged an Indian system admin on the customer side to modify a system configuration setting to troubleshoot an issue. Even if it did not resolve the problem, it would at least rule out one possibility. However, I faced the same resistance: he kept insisting there was no issue. After several rounds of back and forth, he reluctantly agreed to make the change, but not without commenting that in his 10 years of experience, he had never been asked to do something like this. Guess what? He did not show up to the next meeting because the issue was resolved.
I know these folks well. Others might back off when confidently told there is no problem, but I still have a lingering question: Why the resistance? Is he afraid of being proven wrong or that the issue lies in his area of responsibility? It is frustrating as he-l.
20 years ago, I worked with highly competent Indian engineers, but now everything has changed. If you’re a business owner, you should be thrilled when your biggest competitor starts outsourcing a ton of work to India, because it means they’ll get stuck in a vortex of inefficiency, their customers will suffer, and it’s the perfect time for you to overtake them.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @af+1k0ey1n88

Post a reply

: