Pfizer inks IT outsourcing deal in China

[OhioChick]

08/03/2007 - Pfizer is consolidating all its IT helpdesk operations in the Asia-Pacific to a central site in China under a new outsourcing arrangement with Hewlett-Packard.

Hewlett-Packard''s newly-established Global Solution Center in Dalian, northeast China, will be used to house the new setup.

The company is already in the process of moving all of Pfizer's helpdesk operations in Japan to the site, which will be up and running by mid 2007.

Following this, Hewlett-Packard will then also migrate the helpdesk outfits of 13 other countries in the Asia-Pacific to the Chinese site, over three stages.

The countries involved in the reshuffle are Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and India.

http://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/news/ng.asp?n=74817-pfizer-hewlett-packard-helpdesk-outsourcing-china


<snip> As part of this, the world's biggest drugmaker announced plans in January to axe 10,000 jobs and close facilities by the end of next year and indicated it would also step up its outsourcing efforts.

[AndyA]

1. THIS NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!

The outsourcing of American jobs, by American companies, to Communist countries is an outrage. Some day, China could be our enemy. And what the hell are we going to do when all of America's largest corporations have no customer service - at all?

It could happen.

(I guess I should clarify: instead of the small amount of pretend service they provide today, there would be none. Number disconnected, E-mail bounce.)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Isn't it ironic...

that they're a "Communist" country and you're upset because capitalist countries are moving jobs there to save money?

[Megahurtz]

2. This Outsourcing and Hiring Foreigners over Americans

is getting way out of control.

[Ignacio Upton]

3. Economic question: What if we prohibited businesses who did this

from selling products in the U.S.? I know such a move would be impractical, but considering the size of the American market, and our strength as a superpower (albeit, weaker) do you think that threatening companies who egregiously outsource would work?

[Megahurtz]

6. Maybe it would work,

but I can't see the U.S. ever actually doing this. The problem is that the U.S. Government just doesn't really care about it's Citizens at home.

Once all this Outsourcing has started and become this prevelent I can't see that it will ever stop.

[ChromeFoundry]

14. I don't think it's that the U.S. Gov. doesn't care...

The companies are looking only at "next-quarter profits", and they have already bought the U.S. Government. It will stop, eventually. There is but a finite number of jobs in the U.S.

[ProudDad]

17. The government doesn't care

because this current government is bought and paid for by corporate Amerika...

They REALLY don't care about U.S. citizens' needs.

[pampango]

8. "Hiring Foreigners over Americans"

Are you referring to the hiring of legal H1-B visa workers or illegal immigrant workers.

[ChromeFoundry]

15. maybe the poster is referring to both...

my guess is that he, like everyone else that understands the negative impact of middle-class wage reduction is also referring to the "illegal" hiring of H1-B workers as well. Go ahead an argue that this does not take place in this corporate age of profits... I have witnessed and have been forced participate in this practice, by write up detailed job descriptions, post them in local newspapers (P.O. reply address) and discard all responses that DO fit the criteria of the job description. This allows companies to skirt the I-9 Federal Compliance screening of attempting to hire U.S. citizens over retaining foreign national workers. It happens more than think. This is why I no longer work for that company... by choice!

[HockeyMom]

5. Husband has IT friends at Pfizer

When his job was outsourced a few years ago, his friends at Pfizer tried to get him a job there. Now, it looks like like they, too, are joining the ranks.

It just keeps going round and round and round.

Yet, Mr. Gates still cannot see why there is a dearth of young IT talent in this country?????

[pampango]

7. This outsourcing deal does not even affect American jobs.

It is a movement of helpdesk operations in several Asian countries to China.

The "snip" at the end is somewhat misleading. The "As part of this" refers not to this Asian IT realignment but to the preceding paragraph in the article. "Indeed, Pfizer has been chasing a number of cost-cutting initiatives of late in the face of looming patent expiries for its biggest-selling drugs as well as the recent high-profile failure of a late-stage pipeline project, torcetrapib."

If this deal is all their outsourcing effort, it won't even affect our workers.

[hogwyld]

9. Are these the same jobs

Americans won't do???

[pampango]

10. I think you are referring to the jobs that illegal immigrants do.

;)

It seems to me, that some at DU are more worried about outsourcing to and cheap imports from the Third World, while some others are more worried about illegal immigrants who compete with and put wage pressure on American workers. Often, the ones that worry about the former, are less concerned about the latter, and vice versa. Some who Otare very sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants, including me, are very upset by outsourcing and cheap imports from the Third World, not me. Others are more upset by the latter than the former. Some, though not that many from what I have seen, want to put a stop to both all illegal immigration and to outsourcing and cheap imports.

[liberal N proud]

11. I feel their pain - BIG TIME

My week so far dealing with an outsourced IT group...
This week I came in on Monday morning:
We had an excellent IT group could solve any problem the users could through at them, email never went down.
That has all changed, here is an account of my week so far...

Monday:

I was amazed that email was even working as it is down 50% of the time. An email from the Help desk telling me that they are making my life easy, all I needed to do was pick up the phone and all my troubles would be taken care of. No more forms to fill out to get new user account created.
Just so happened that I needed to create a new user account for a new employee. So I pick up the phone and call the help desk. I get someone with an Indian accent (not American Indian)and when I tell him that I need to have a new user created his reply. "We not do that" "you call help desk" Yeah, that is what I am doing! After 20 minutes of trying to get through to this guy I gave up and called the IT management who btw are still employed by the company. I was informed that indeed that the help desk was to create the account. I have already spent 1 hour on this. The form took 5 minutes tops. So I call the help desk back and get someone with a completely different accent ??? they take the first and last name of the new user and my email address but no other information. He tells me that I should get an email with the help ticket number. That is all he was interested in doing was collecting my email address for the help ticket. Now I am up to 1 1/2 or more for the 5 minute job.
Late Monday afternoon I got a call from the old inter-company help desk which now consist of 2 people needing all the information that I would have included on the form. Another 20 minutes of my time. Yeah this is getting easier.
The account didn't get created until Wednesday, one day later than I needed.

Tuesday:

Email up for 2 hours for some users down all day for others. Countless emails were lost

Wednesday:

Once the new email account was created, I discovered they had misspelled the persons name on the account, this is because I was telling someone who couldn't speak english what the users name was.

Thursday:

I discover that a user within the company has taken it upon themselves to contact the IT company we outsourced to and relieve me of some of my responsibilities. This would be great as I already have too much to take care of, but this person did this so they could control who would get access to software that my office purchased and is responsible for. That one is about to blow up in someones face.

I am sure that Friday will be a marvelous day in the world of corporate computing.

YEAH! I FEEL THESE PEOPLES PAIN.

[brentspeak]

12. Thanks for posting that.

Outsourcing and offshoring is killing this nation.

[OhioChick]

13. You're damn right it is. n/t

[ChromeFoundry]

16. ... and is killing the middle class as well! n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Pfuck Pfizer!