See also Outsourcing | Intellectual Property
We get approached for work by a lot of overseas Web developers especially from India seeking outsourcing work at some very cheap price and offering to build up our business by using their labour to augment our little business.
We have had 3 enquiries in 1 week in October 2008 by Indian developers to outsouce to them.
We use our own labour. Unless we get some big jobs and would need staff quickly, we will not be hiring anyone in the foreseeable future. If we do, we prefer to use Australians based here not offshore to keep the funds and technology in Australia. We don't want to bring in a skilled migrant on a 457 visa either. We want native-born Australians if possible to create an incentive for Australian students to study software engineering and work for an Australian IT company like ours. It is like we are barking up the wrong tree but we can see disaster ahead for Australia if we take the easy way out and do no training here and just import every skill required.
We want to build up the Australian fledgling IT industry rather than send all the smart jobs offshore and remain a basic administrator. We want to have a smart company, not some management firm with no intelligence so will work hard to keep all smart work here for the foreseeable future.
Indian IT firms seem to see Australia as a soft target for exporting IT into our country with an ageing population and IT skills shortage due to the slump after the dot com crash in 2001. The Australian Government has done precious little to encourage an IT industry to grow here buying off big multinationals who take the money out of the country and don't invest in Australia for the long-term, just a quick buck. All those large multinational firms just have branch-offices in Australia and rarely develop intellectual property here. We develop Australian intellectual property and that gives us back control over our destiny instead of just buying from overseas and becoming an IT services consumer not producer, at the mercy of the multinationals' agenda. Witness the number of large US IT companies who have cut staff in their Australian operations in the last few years when there is a slump in USA.
We know this goes completely against the trend in Australia of making a quick dollar and sending all smart jobs offshore to save money hiring and training new staff, but we think it is better to invest in our business in Australia and not send the intellectual property offshore so we remain competitive in the future and don't get overtaken by USA and UK companies who are very aggressive at advancing their countries' interests.
We will stick up for Australian jobs first and foremost and keep our country smart instead of just an outpost of offshore companies which has happened so many times in the past and left us without much future. This time our business is to advance Australia and not fatten overseas companies' pockets by sending more advanced work offshore.
We work hard and want the benefits to stay in Australia.
There are no jobs or outsourcing work here!