Offshore Today

India Offshore: Growth slowing

"India's revenue from offshore outsourcing will likely have single-digit growth in the fiscal year to March 31, 2010..." PC World "India's Outsourcing Industry Heads to Single-digit Growth"

This should not come as a big surprise. We have seen decision making in offshore outsourcing take longer and come through for less dollars. The need for development outsourcing continues to exist, especially in the Rich Mobile (iPhone, Blackberry...) and in SaaS (Software as a Service).

For Business Processing (BPO), transactions are lower (ie less airline tickets to process), however as the economy returns - BPO should experience growth.

"The BPO industry saw revenue growth decrease because the volume of transactions declined as some industries saw their business flagging... If people buy less, then there are fewer credit-card transactions, and fewer airline tickets to process. Once business picks up in the U.S. and other countries, the BPO industry is likely to see higher growth..."

However, will India experience the same level of offshore outsourcing prosperity that it once enjoyed, with competition coming from all corners of the world? Stay tuned.

Cloud Computing: An Outstanding Outsourcing and Offshore Opportunity

Cloud computing provides a new dynamic to outsourcing - and even offshoring of services. Cloud computing  "is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the internet (wiki definition). In other words, the user of the service does not own or need any physical servers or technology structure to take advantage of the given service.

Outsourcing is easy to visualize; that the service is being supplied by a 3rd party. However - do we know or care where the service is managed - thus an offshore angle. This is a global society - and if privacy concerns are mitigated and ensured, there is great opportunity to host services in countries where there are cost and labor efficiencies.

In a recent article on Cloud Computing and Outsourcing, another advantage for business:

"...Cloud computing will help create what he calls "a new lightweight form of real-time partnerships and outsourcing with IT suppliers." These relationships will offer companies more control and flexibility than traditional outsourcing arrangements, writes Hinchcliffe, largely because it will be easier to switch suppliers if you are dissatisfied."
Companies May See Outsourcing in New Light, Thanks to Cloud, ITBusiness Edge

Companies that can leverage their services in the "cloud" can reap tremendous benefits, both in good and challenging financial times. The challenge for the supplier is to provide incredible customer service (new features, support, uptime....) or be replaced. And this is another benefit for the client user.

Outsourcing Journalism: The New Haven Experiment

The New York Times reported that the New Haven Advocate outsourced their content to Mumbai India based freelancer writers. This Alternative newspaper outsource articles on the arts, sex and music. Initial reviews seemed positive, which translates that this kind of outsourcing is possible. BUT is it real?

“A city is best reported by people who live in it. Period.

”...maybe it showed something else: that breaking the mold did work, that you could reinvent the wheel and come up with something pretty fresh.

From the NYTimes article ("Made In India, but Published in New Haven", by Peter Applebome, May 31, 2009)

We believe offshore outsourcing can present advantages to business and in our discussion about KPO, there can be strong benefits to outsourced research and social network content writing. The experiment seem to show that this kind of journalism can be outsourced, which may or may not be a good thing.

Elderly Care: Sending your loved ones to.... India?

A brief blog article discussing elderly care - in India - caught our attention. If this is indeed true, honestly, not sure what to think.

The story is about how Steve Herzfeld sent his elderly parents to India for care; since costs are significantly less than what was available in Florida. Is this a trend, where we ship our elderly to India? I certainly can hear the advantages with regards to elderly in-laws, yet find this offshore trend disturbing.