Now in one of my other projects the best performing person was not sent onsite. The person was super-efficient and highly productive. He had the capacity to do any task in half the time that an average person would take to complete. When such a person is not sent onsite then the typical perception is that the person would have some own family problems or personal issues. These would be hurdles that would keep him away from such opportunities. However, in spite of no such constraints the person was not preferred for an onsite role.
Instead of him another average guy
who was nowhere close to being exceptional was sent onsite. A lot of people around were quite amazed at the decision of the management. However the managers were quite firm on it as it had a shrewd financial reason tied to it. The project contract was a time and billing one. The one person at onsite would work on a different part of the functionality which would be charged based on the number of actual hours spend.Now in IT companies, typically for the same skill the onsite hourly rates are significantly higher than the offshore hourly rates. To give you a concrete distinction, I would
say onsite rates are generally 4 to 5 times more than the offshore rates. The management believed that this person would be able to prolong the execution of his module. This would help the company charge more dollars from the client. Had they sent the other person then he would have got lesser dollars because of his high productivity. So, the way the contracts were shaped prompted the management to send an average candidate to perform onsite job for nearly a year.Sometimes being highly productive can also backfire in an IT company and average candidates could be preferred for onsite roles where the vendor dictates the dollars with respect to the work done on a daily basis. Generally support and enhancement projects prefer such type of resources.
You need not be super talented to be onsite. It could be just sheer luck and average performance that can get you there.
http://expertscolumn.com/content/who-gets-onsite-opportunities-it-companies-part-1
http://expertscolumn.com/content/skill-flexibility-must-survive-it-industry
http://expertscolumn.com/content/my-experience-hiring-software-professionals-0