If there are professional software developers in Nigeria, why do big organizations outsource their main software projects to foreign companies ?

Lets discuss.

"Programmers alone Pleaaaazeeee" 

Probably because they feel local guys are not good enough

1) Possibly because of 419 issues.

2) Could also be that unlike in other countries, we have laws *that we don't enforce*. In other words, why risk giving the job to a local person who might bail on you when for a little extra, I could have someone else do it elsewhere for me?

3) Maybe because it is cheaper. Many jobs have left the US for India, China and even Nigeria on account of this

4) Possible tax incentives

5) Maybe because they don't feel the local guys are professional enough

6) Maybe because we have more "companies (as in individuals whose offices are in their briefcase)" as opposed to companies.

The list goes on and on

yawa-ti-de:


6) Maybe because we have more "companies (as in individuals whose offices are in their briefcase)" as opposed to companies.

This is so true . I know a couple of guys like that. You see them carrying backpacks with 1000 cds all about lagos.

candylips:

This is so true . I know a couple of guys like that. You see them carrying backpacks with 1000 cds all about lagos.

please can u clarify that statement ?

:/

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Another reason is that a lot of Nigerians don't use their brains. Can u imagine this poster (kay boy) working on a software for ur company ?
dumb ass.

LOL dammy, you took the words right out of my mouth

Please add the following to my list above:

7) probably because we don't code to specs ( I say this in light of kay's post.  Kay's post has "kay" leg  )

I choose and think No.7 of yawa's post is even more reason.

Most programmers just base on what they'd learned in the past and don't care to learn more. This makes their developments not able to stand to the test of time. Before you understand what is happening, the API is already out of bid. Why? Old specs and nothing of the new or latest specs. Funny enough, plans are not even made for future maintenance and as such, will take almost the same time it took to programme the version 1.0 to do version 2.0 even 1.2

There could be several reasons. I am not sure if there are large IT companies in Nigeria that are using any king of "Methodology" for their software development. Requirements gathering, Physical and Logical design, use case reviews, etc. are very important parts of the software development process. However, it could be that most of the IT shops in Nigeria just do not follow any of these.

who told you that all big companies outsource their programming jobs abroad?

You think and reason like a pig in the lion's den.

Methodology can be very difficult to comprehend for some of these guys

Two reasons I can easily deduce are:

1). These foriegn companies have probably solved such problems in the past and a client might feel it's pointless commissioning the project to a local developer who while being smart enough to handle the job will probably waste a lot of time reinventing the wheel when the foriegn firms will simple dig into their vast archives and reuse existing codes thus saving time and money.

2). If a local developers program were to crash and your company looses a lot of money in the process could such sums be recovered from them even via a sucessfull law suite? Most of our local firms just don't have the financial muscles to deal with such scenerios thus a client will prefer to outsource big budget projects to firms that will be able to deal with the financial consequencies that may result from failure of their "solutions".

@yawa
U're just so funny, I just can't stop laughing.

Keep em comming.

Most companies are more comfortable with foreign companies because quite a number of local companies have caused a lot of pains to a lot of businesses in Nigeria, as simple as that.

I have seen a lot of web projects that don't make sense, don't solve any problems, in fact some of them actually hurt the very brands they were meant to protect or improve.

We have a lot of talkers and braggers with little or nothing to show for it.

It will only get worse and for good reasons too.

The web is not the same thing as the print media where artistes pose as customers and smile at you to make you like a product. The web is task oriented and until quite a number of web developers realize this many businesses will continue to have bad experiences with their web projects that are most times full of meaningless images and irrelevant stuff.

Afam, you brought up a good point. It reminds me of how angry I felt when I heard that execs of the phone companies were flown in from their respective countries, as opposed to those companies using local talent. when I asked, i was told, "wat else do you expect from us nigerians? na we do ourselves"

pitiful!

game_rod:

who told you that all big companies outsource their programming jobs abroad?

You think and reason like a pig in the lion's den.

@game_rod : why not just read the post and leave. Must u post ?

Through out the post , did u see any statement like "All [/b]Big Companies " ?
I have been part of the teams that designed and implemented software projects for "[b]SOME BIG ORGANIZATIONS" in Nigeria.
If u don't understand the post just sit down and watch while experienced guys post something much more reasonable.

@All Other Posters: Great Work ! i am learning and reasoning with u guyz

Our people always belief that foreign guys are better than Local guys.
For example I was discussing with one Bank official asking him who did their Intranet.
which he said is from india Company, which I asked could be that no company can handle that here?
His response was: "because of the competition in the industry every company want to go for the best".
Now you can understand what I mean above.

Its about packaging and the fact that most of this so-called companies have a bias for anything foreign its a Nigerian Syndrome although one would have to admit that most of these foreign software peeps do a more thorough job

Well, most big companies outsource their programming jobs to companies abroad for the same reasons we would rather buy a product manufactured abroad rather than buy a locally manufactured product.

davidt,

Yours, IMHO, is perhaps the best response to this thus far. I never thought of it that way