Vail Cert
Essay by review • December 3, 2010 • Essay • 321 Words (2 Pages) • 1,022 Views
Summary and Conclusion
Transferring jobs overseas can be more of a hassle than a blessing and in ValiCert's case it was. Problems with communications and misunderstandings plagued the company. Before the job transfers, employees who needed a quick chat would just talk over the cubicle wall with the next employee but with the overseas jobs, some assignments would take months to write detailed instructions. New projects would become delayed and mistrust would thrive within the company. The company became unstable and its finances slowly declined.
However, there are a few pros to what seems like a handful of cons, the work shift to India did help cut ValiCert's engineering costs by 65 percent. It also allowed ValiCert to be acquired by Tumbleweed Communications Corp., makers of anti-spam software with an offshore operation in Bulgaria. Today, the combined Tumbleweed is growing and it still hiring employees and software architects in Silicon Valley with 6 figure incomes.
The offshore operation however, did not go as smoothly at first. Frequent glitches within the software, employee layoffs and workers who would work non-stop on certain projects would just quit and search for new jobs in Bangalore. Product manager, John Thielens, quotes "It felt like the sword of Damocles was swinging above their cube."
It wasn't until the end of 2002; the ValiCert's executives believed that the company had stabilized again. In February 2003, Tumbleweed and ValiCert merged. Their offices in California, Bulgaria and India all divide the engineers and they all work together. In Bulgaria, the engineers write and test software and in India the engineers test software, fix bugs and create new versions of products.
ValiCert had a rough start with the overseas job transfers in the beginning but after some hurdles the company pulled through eventually turned out ok. As Mr. Thielens stated "Nine months ago, people would have said moving offshore was the biggest disaster but now we're just starting to understand how we can benefit."
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