“Fear and uncertainty gripped the city” . . . “Rumors have been swirling” . . . . A great opening line like these just isn’t coming to mind today for this blog. Nevertheless, the importance of the outsourcing news items I’m blogging about shouldn’t be underestimated. Making my pulse list today are outsourcing developments we should all keep on our radar screens.
But then . . . along came IBM. Amidst countless media articles and industry surveys and reports predicting the adoption of outsourced cloud services are many that point to the inherent security risks and complexities that may slow adoption. But… Read the rest
Rebounding from the recession and economic crisis, and despite increasing competition from other offshore outsourcing destinations, India outsourcing firms will still occupy the headlines as the world leader in 2011. As evidence:
- Kotak Institutional Equities predicts “blockbuster growth” for TCS, Infosys, and Cognizant
- TCS upped its plans to hire, now announcing they’re looking for 50,000 new employees; Infosys wants to add another 20,000 in headcount
However, in a PC World article on 11 trends in 2011, advisory firms EquaTerra and Everest Group predict an increasing interest in outsourcing to providers in China,… Read the rest
Three statistics caught my eye as important outsourcing news today: #1, 3/4, and 24.
#1 - Congratulations to Océ Business Services!
The Black Book of Outsourcing’s 2010 “State of the Industry” survey ranked Océ as the leading document process outsourcing provider among the Global Top 50 Outsourcing Providers. Océ Business Services received the highest scores of any DPO provider in the three criteria that 6,500 respondents considered to be the most important. These include awareness of requirements, closely followed by the ability to resolve problems as and when they arise, and the skills and resources that providers can bring to the work they… Read the rest
CPA Global has just released findings from its second annual State of the IP Industry Survey. Respondents were more positive about the evolution of IP practices and processes – such as rights renewals, IP searches and data verification – over the past 12 months, identifying the credit crunch as the impetus the industry needed to develop more streamlined alternatives to old ways of working.
More than half of surveyed in-house IP departments and over one-third of IP law firms stated the Asia-Pacific region is the most challenging to deal with and that governments need to take greater action to enforce rights and prevent piracy. China was cited… Read the rest
Surfing the net a couple of days ago to stay on top of industry news as it happens, four articles caught my eye and took me off auto-pilot long enough to read every word.
The article in Gulf Times, a Qatar newspaper, began with this statement made by Azim Premji, the renowned Indian entrepreneur and chairman of Wipro:
“India is far from where it needs to be …. Country after country is stepping ahead.”
It seems to me that for a long time the media has treated the words “India” and “outsourcing” almost as though they were synonymous. That… Read the rest
Infosys is looking to acquire companies in the UK, France and Germany.
A new study reveals that 500,000 public sector jobs will likely be outsourced by 2015 in the UK in its efforts to combat inefficiencies and reduce government spending.
Convergys, Stream Global Services, Sutherland Global Services and Sykes Asia are assembling Spanish-speaking talent pools in the Philippines.
China’s hiSoft Technology International has taken over U.S. cloud computing provider Echo Lane, a top solution provider for Salesforce.com.
Irish BPO provider Abtran is adding 200 new jobs in its research and development area serving sales, customer service,… Read the rest
What would happen if China and India were to stop competing and start cooperating instead? An article in Business Standard, an Indian newspaper, explores the possibility and concludes:
There is considerable scope for joint projects as we master the practice of working harmoniously together. … We strongly feel that the India-China relationship is grossly under-realised and the capacities for expansion are enormous.
An article in The Huffington Post takes a broader look and concludes:
Cooperation on the global level is a new requirement in the history of our civilization, and we are not prepared for it. Our institutions and organizations were
Henry Kissinger said that the absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. That has been true in outsourcing in recent years. It was marvelously clear that companies could reduce their costs through outsourcing to offshore locations with low-cost labor, especially in India. But now there’s a viable alternative: companies can outsource their work to low-cost nearshore locations.
The cost, time zone, and other advantages from outsourcing to a country that is a “neighbor” and has the same culture are significant. Western European companies have successfully nearshored their work to Eastern European locations for quite a while, and China is a… Read the rest
Taking stock of what I read and heard about outsourcing news and deals recently, it’s evident that many people are predisposed to opinions and expectations about outsourcing. People are either inclined toward, prejudiced against, enthusiastic, unwilling, wedded to, or averse to outsourcing. Several comments caught my attention.
A little bit of tongue in cheek –
Of course, if outsourcing were anything close to a security silver bullet, we’d all be working for IBM.
Diving into the issues –
Fujitsu is bringing the role of Officer of Continuous Improvement to an Enterprise near you. Forget the clipboard
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