Ulster Bank Payments Debacle

micmclo said:

Am I wrong for hoping this might mean this bank and others might stop sending jobs to India and bring these jobs back to Ireland and the UK?

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Not wrong. Naive maybe, but not wrong .

For the 'strategy *' of outsourcing to be reversed, an executive would have to admit a mistake, and executives don't get to be executives by admitting failure. More likely the 'strategy' was right and the execution was at fault.

With the way in which IT Support was outsourced for RBS, an inestimable amount of 'corporate memory' was paid to leave. That level of knowledge and experience cannot be replaced without disruption. IT staff in India are educated to a high level and are ambituous to succeed. What is rumoured to have happened could have happened with experienced hands on board, but the recovery from the problem would, IMHO, have been different, i.e. better.

'strategy *' I don't believe cost cutting to be a strategy.

micmclo said:

Am I wrong for hoping this might mean this bank and others might stop sending jobs to India and bring these jobs back to Ireland and the UK?

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Do we know that this is what has caused the problem?

It looks as though
(1) Software was upgraded without appropriate testing
(2) There was no adequate disaster recovery capability

People responsible for both of these issues would typically not be outsourced to India, Eastern Europe, etc.

DerKaiser said:

Do we know that this is what has caused the problem?

It looks as though
(1) Software was upgraded without appropriate testing
(2) There was no adequate disaster recovery capability

People responsible for both of these issues would typically not be outsourced to India, Eastern Europe, etc.

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Sounds familiar

(1) Houses were upgraded without appropriate testing
(2) There was no adequate disaster recovery capability

From the banking forum

MeathCommute said:

Ulster bank and Natwest are owned by Royal Bank Of Scotland. The chief execs of RBOS outsourced all of their IT work to Chennai in India three years ago. Union chiefs warned them of the potential catastrophic reaches of such a decision. Staff in Parkgate Street Dublin were all made redundant. Staff in Edinburgh were made redundant also. Overall over 1000 experienced IT staff were let go. Now the chickens have come home to roost

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Management have learned that cheapest is often the dearest

I would imagine the rates for short-term, mainframe contracts has increased rather substantially in Dublin/Edinburgh at the moment . Ahh...fond memories of green-screen Cobol...

Firefly said:

I would imagine the rates for short-term, mainframe contracts has increased rather substantially in Dublin/Edinburgh at the moment . Ahh...fond memories of green-screen Cobol...

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I think there are Indian IT services companies who have such resources at competitive rates ?

This sounds plausible, even if it just speculation.

TarfHead said:

I think there are Indian IT services companies who have such resources at competitive rates ?

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I should have qualified my statement to refer to contract rates for former employees to come back for a short period of time...