India Outsources Its Own Outsourcing

[Sunite]

India Outsources Its Own Outsourcing
By Anand Giridharadas
September 26, 2007 10:32AM

   Digg It!   Bookmark to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
As an example of the new face of outsourcing, Infosys is building an archipelago of back offices -- in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as in the U.S. The company wants to become a global matchmaker: Any time a company wants work done somewhere else, even just down the street, Infosys hopes to get the call.

Related Topics
   India
   Outsourcing
   Back Office
   Offshoring
   Call Centers

Latest News
   AMD Intros Quad-Core Spider Platform
   Google Mulls Bid for Wireless Spectrum
   Amazon Unveils Kindle E-Book Reader
   Dell Launches Iconic All-in-One PC
   Recycling Electronics Boosts Pollution
Advertisement

Advertisement

   From across India, thousands of recruits report to the Infosys Technologies campus here in the deep south of India. Amid the manicured lawns and modern buildings, they learn the finer points of software programming.

But lately, packs of foreigners have been strolling the campus. Many are Americans, recently graduated from college. Some had been pursued by coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: Fly here to learn programming from scratch, then return to the United States to work in the Indian company's back office.

Now India is outsourcing Relevant Products/Services outsourcing.

One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving tasks -- and jobs -- to India, where they could be done at lower cost. But rising wages for programmers here, a strengthening currency and companies' need for workers in their clients' time zones or for workers who speak languages other than English are challenging that model.

India is facing increased competition from countries seeking to emulate its success as a back office for wealthier neighbors: China for Japan, Morocco for France and Mexico for the United States, for instance.

Looking to beat back these new rivals, leading Indian companies are opening back offices in those countries, outsourcing work to them before their current clients do.

Many executives in India now concede that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks across the planet. The future of outsourcing, said Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, is "to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world."

In May, an Infosys rival, Tata Consultancy Services, announced a new back office in Guadalajara, Mexico; it already has 5,000 employees in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Cognizant Technology Solutions, with most of its operations in India, has now opened back offices in Phoenix, Arizona, and Shanghai. Wipro, another Indian company, has outsourcing offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Last month, Wipro said it was opening a software development center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years.

In a poetic reflection of the new face of outsourcing, the chairman of Wipro, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to take advantage of "states which are less developed," Premji said. (continued...)

1  |  2  |  3  |  Next Page >