Accounting seems to something that is easy to offshore. Two companies I've worked at moved the low level accounting tasks to India and Macao respectively. Much of it is mechanical in nature and once the grunt work is done you can have someone local crosscheck it if needed.
OK, I don't know much about accounting, but offshoring apparently doesn’t work well for many software projects. I imagine accounting is the same. Certain types of work will be suitable, much won't.
You have a valid point but I wholeheartedly disagree.
There was a post on StackOverflow a while back where developers from different countries commented on the strengths/weaknesses of their home countries in the field of programming.
Many of the devs from India commented that the caste system had a huge influence on the types of people who become programmers. Essentially, many people from families in the higher classes go to school to learn programming because of the prospective earning potential and pressure from their families to succeed.
Many of the anecdotes mentioned projects that failed because the developers working offshore had a tendency to build the projects strictly to the specification. Despite the fact that the specification was incomplete or contained assumptions that were later discovered to be false. Ie they built what they were told to build, not what matched the 'real' requirements of the project.
The 'average' programmer there has little personal interest in the field and culturally they're more inclined to respect authority 'do as their told' not 'do what they think is right'.
A true measure of potential in a programmer can be seen in the willingness/ability to think and approach problems with a high degree of divergent thinking. To look beyond the rules/limitations of a system and discover novel solutions to their problems.
Accounting OTOH requires a very high degree of convergent thinking. Meaning, it's not only expected but absolutely vital for accountants to work within the bounds of the established laws/policies. There's a very fine line between creative accounting to increase the margins and cooking the books.
In cultures that put a lot of emphasis on respecting authority and doing what's expected, accounting may be a better fit culturally. Especially, compared to cultures that put less emphasis on authority and order.
That's not to say that there aren't talented/passionate programmers in those countries. There definitely are, they just may not be as prevalent as you or I may assume; for cultural reasons that we may not inherently understand.
