[defectbydesign]

Is it a joke?

In many industries it's not uncommon to subcontract a service by a subcontractor which himself subcontract the same service to another subcontractor (usually cheaper).

In the end it is only a question of money!

Actually top american tech companies don't have to go directly to India to get cheaper workers but instead they call american subcontractor to get cheaper workers anywhere in the world. Even more with restricted green cards thanks to Donald TRUMP. :-)

[eitally]

i don't know why you were downvoted -- you're exactly right.

[mywittyname]

It was right 10-15 years ago, but less so now. There's been a huge pushback on off-shore development in the past decade for a variety of reasons, mainly poor results, issues with time zone differences, and the negligible cost savings. Most of the big consulting firms we associate with off-shore contracting (like TATA) are supplying mostly on-shore (engineering) consultants to domestic companies (but maintaining services like help desk offshore).

Middle management got tired of having daily meetings at midnight or 6 AM, and it got too expensive to bring people over who were fine with doing so. The India job market got pretty tight around '14 or so, to the point where engineers were leaving jobs every 4-6 months for greener pastures. And even though the consulting companies are supposed to be in charge of KT, so that transitions don't impact the clients, the rate of change was just too high to maintain good quality.