Bank Of America Rewrites Its 'We-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-America' Patent Application

Fri, May 9th 2008 7:28am

Filed Under:
offshoring, patents

Companies:
bank of america

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Bank of America's We-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-America Patent Application

from the how-nice-of-them dept

theodp writes "Americans are a real problem, explains Bank of America in a just-disclosed patent application for County Assessment. 'A typical American employee,' complains BofA, 'demands a high salary, good benefits, a good work environment, vacation time, and other job-related perks.' Such problems are solved with BofA's patent-pending methodology, which eliminates 'demanding work force' problems by identifying another country for a corporation to relocate its work force to."

Legal Issues

Thu, Feb 21st 2008 8:29pm

Filed Under:
offshoring, patents

Companies:
accenture

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Top Accenture Scientist Patents Offshoring US Jobs

from the sounds-familiar? dept

theodp writes "Back in 2005, Accenture Chief Scientist Dr. Kishore Swaminathan teased in a blog entry: 'I have an idea that could revolutionize an important area of information technology - but I cannot tell you because I might compromise Accenture's patent rights.' In January, Swaminathan and co-inventor Charles Nebolsky were granted U.S. patent protection for Rapid knowledge transfer among workers, which covers 'transferring knowledge from expert workers at a client location to apprentice workers' at 'offshore locations such as India, the Philippines, China, etc., where labor is less expensive'. BTW, Accenture wants you experts and the EEOC to know that it's a meritocracy that does not discriminate on the basis of national origin, which would of course break the law."

This sounds oddly familiar. Remember a few months back when it came out that IBM had applied for a patent on offshoring? After that hit the news, IBM ended up dropping the claim. Somehow I doubt Accenture will do the same.

Overhype

Tue, Feb 12th 2008 9:44am

Filed Under:
offshoring, us companies

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Once Again, Offshoring Not As Big A Deal As Many Believe

from the and-again dept

For many years, we've contended that offshoring wasn't such a big deal. We did make it clear that it probably didn't work as well as some supporters claimed, and that many companies that offshored work would later regret it. However, that didn't mean that companies should be barred from offshoring, or that offshoring was necessarily bad. Yet, whenever we post about it, people show up to complain that all American tech jobs are being outsourced and there are no jobs left for techies in America. We've already seen that that's untrue, and these days, it's actually quite difficult to hire strong techies in many companies. Last year, we saw a report that noted that most tech companies did very little offshoring -- and now there's a new report coming out looking at all different kinds of American companies (not just tech ones) and discovering that most CIOs aren't huge fans of offshoring either. They've discovered what we predicted back in 2003: sending jobs overseas because they're cheaper is often less efficient, because of the difficulty in managing people from so far away in a different time zone. So, can we finally put to bed the myth that offshoring is killing off the American tech job?

News You Could Do Without

Fri, Nov 9th 2007 5:02pm

Filed Under:
business model patents, call centers, offshoring, outsourcing, patents

Companies:
at&t

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AT&T Seeks Patent For Limiting Access To U.S. Workers

from the this-is-patent-worthy? dept

theodp writes "To be fair, IBM isn't the only corporation guilty of demanding U.S. patents for outsourcing methods. For example, AT&T Knowledge Ventures has a patent pending for Managing Incoming Telephone Calls at a Call Center, an invention that calls for transferring callers to offshore call centers unless advance payment is received for the privilege of speaking to someone in the United States. 'Such an option may be beneficial to callers who have difficulties with accents or who have personal or political agendas against outsourcing,' explains Ma Bell 2.0. AT&T's patent claims also cover buying down wait time ('The current wait time is 34 minutes. You may reduce your wait time by a minute for each dollar you are willing to pay. Please enter the number of minutes/dollars you want.')."

Beyond the ridiculousness of the very concept, I've heard such an idea talked about for years. It's a pretty straightforward and obvious idea -- but it's one that few others were interested in implementing (or patenting) as it would likely piss off users. Apparently AT&T doesn't worry about such things. In the meantime, in March of 2004 (about a year and a half before AT&T filed for its patent), I wrote about how the company E-Loan was offering something quite similar. Rather than an upfront payment, E-Loan offered customers a choice of an onshore or offshore call center person, with the knowledge that an offshore support person would help them get a loan faster and an onshore one would take longer. That seems pretty similar to the idea of paying -- it's just that the cost is in time instead of money. Even if this isn't direct prior art, it certainly suggests that these types of ideas have been floating around for quite some time and hardly should be entirely "owned" by one company.

Bleeding Edge

by Dennis Yang

Fri, Nov 2nd 2007 1:11am

Filed Under:
offshoring

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Next In Line To Be Offshored To India? Butlers and Personal Assistants.

from the it's-a-small-small-world dept

The world-shrinking Internet has enabled many companies to utilize offshore employees for everything from computer programming to customer service, with the promise a great cost savings (which actually, at the end of the day, turn out to not be that much). Well, now corporations don't have to be the only ones capitalizing on this trend -- you can now hire your own personal assistant or homework tutor in India. For fractions of what you would normally pay for US-based help, your Bangalore butler can help make travel arrangements, book dinner reservations, and help coordinate your busy schedule. Or, if your child is having trouble with their math homework, hire a remote tutor to help them out. Instead of paying $30 an hour for a local tutor, the offshore services charge $99 a month for as many 45-minute tutoring sessions that you want to arrange. The price savings is there, but it is still questionable whether or not these services will draw enough demand to sustain themselves. TutorVista currently has 10,000 subscribers, which sounds impressive until we recall that in 2005, 20,000 students were estimated to be using Indian tutors. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the economies of scale will apply to consumer services -- whereas offshoring corporate services like customer service lends itself to large, multi-million dollar contracts, consumer services are sold to one individual at a time for a few hundred dollars. For the new personal assistant services, the future is murky at best. While most corporate offshoring projects are driven by cost savings, personal assistant services are a new market, now made available through falling prices. Personal assistants once only affordable for Devil Wears Prada-like executives would now be affordable to middle managers. However, since it is a new market, a considerable amount of marketing must be done to even let people know that these services exist. And, of course, with these remote assistants halfway around the world, you still have to make your own coffee.

Predictions

Wed, Oct 31st 2007 5:36am

Filed Under:
automation, jobs, offshoring

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Stop Hating Foreigners, Start Hating AJAX

from the automation-moves-on dept

Whenever we talk about offshoring around here it seems to generate a lot of controversy, as a group of folks show up insisting that offshoring "costs" the US jobs -- despite tons of evidence that that's not true at all. It does change the nature of jobs and may emphasize different skills, but more efficient production tends to create more new jobs. In fact, we've tried to point out in the past that offshoring is really no different than automation, though it's less efficient. So we wonder if people who are against offshoring are also against automation (or, well, any kind of productivity enhancement). Perhaps they should be. Slashdot points us to a recent article saying that more modern "web 2.0" technologies are allowing firms to cut IT staff more significantly than offshoring. Yet, don't be fooled. This is unlikely to mean fewer jobs in the long run -- but it will change the types of skills that companies are looking for. But, in the meantime, pure unadulterated luddism is a lot more socially acceptable (if equally as pointless) than the garden-variety racism that comes out of people when talking about offshoring. It's just equally as pointless.

Culture

Thu, Oct 25th 2007 7:36am

Filed Under:
call centers, india, offshoring

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India Facing Call Center Crisis: Blame Bangalore Bar Closing Times

from the drink-up dept

Stephanie Overby writes "Could your company's sinking customer satisfaction numbers have something to do with the early closing time for bars in Bangalore? If your call center is based in India, they just might. Indian corporate recruiters are facing a harder sell with students when it comes to the help-desk jobs that used to symbolize India's rising fortunes. Bad hours, worse pay, and verbal abuse. Who needs it? It's also probably no coincidence that since Bangalore pushed up the closing times for its bars and "entertainment" establishments to 11:30 p.m. a few years ago, the appeal of shift work has dwindled. What 22-year old wants to graveyard shift when it means no social life, particularly when there are new, better alternatives? The net result is not pretty for Indian call center operators... or the U.S. companies that source their work there. "

Studies

Thu, Jul 26th 2007 6:35am

Filed Under:
offshoring