Planet Outsourcing

Outsourcing has reached the sports arena too and China is trying to milk it as much as possible. With China and U.S rivals in the area of sports too, China wants to leave no stone unturned to overcome America in this field also. Remember in Athens Olympics China garnered 32 gold medals falling just four short of U.S total of 36 and this time China wants to turn the tables.

China has outsourced its coaching spots for Olympic teams so you will see a Serbian coach for their Olympic men’s soccer team, an American coach for their women’s softball team, a South Korean managing their hockey department, Lithuanian for their basketball and last but not the least a Japanese as a swimming coach.

With China outsourcing more than a dozen foreign coaches it’s all set to tumble America in the 2008 Olympics. This is the age of sport outsourcing, isn’t it?

Via theeagle

If you own a computer then you must have experienced hard drive crashes and due to the fear of losing data you are forced to keep a backup of data in a blank CD or DVD or even an external hard drive but chances are that you may also lose this backup due to innumerable reasons.

Realizing this problem companies instead of maintaining a backup with themselves have started outsourcing their data backup work to companies who have huge computing infrastructure for storing the backups. Though it seems to be a good idea but it’s necessary to have a broadband connection to access this data and the online storage company might even tamper with the data.

Despite a few disadvantages we need to consider the fact that data backup outsourcing not only offers convenience but is also an affordable option. With digital storage getting cheaper over the past few years it has enabled a number of companies to offer free storage space or charge a small price for it. Certainly not a bad idea if your company is not adept in maintaining backup.

Via philly

India is the outsourcing king but with labor costs and turnover rates surging in the country companies are now moving towards other destinations. neoIT which is a management consultancy firm has compiled a list of countries where work could be outsourced based on criteria such as cost competitiveness, skill of workers and quality of local infrastructure. Given below is a list of cities which could be the next outsourcing hub.

Buenos Aires. Argentina
Bucharest, Romania
Dalian, China
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Mexico City
Moscow, Russia
Prague, Czech Republic
St. Petersburg, Russia
Santiago, Chile
Sao Paulo, Brazil

The list above is given in an alphabetical order and is not as per any ranking. It seems that companies might start moving away from Bangalore, India’s IT hub to the cities stated above due to cost factors and India may lose its outsourcing crown soon. Is India listening?

Via businessweek

Insurance outsourcing is much more than ever and the major reasons behind it obviously are the cost benefits besides other factors such as knowledge, skill and focus on core businesses. It has been noticed that insurers are implementing specialized project teams with sourcing expertise and are using frameworks such as Six Sigma and deploying systems which are offering the flexibility for accommodating local needs without involving complex development efforts.

Various surveys conducted by research companies such as Forrester, Research and Markets have found out that insurance outsourcing is increasingly being used as a tool by companies in order to give a push to their core responsibilities.

With indications that this market would pick up further there is a lot of scope for various companies into insurance outsourcing.

Via insurancenetworking

Have you heard about Ethankota village in India? You might never have. Let me tell you about it. A bumpy ride of ten hours from Hyderabad which is regarded as one of India/s IT hub brings you to this small village of Ethankota in Andhra Pradesh which is dominated by brick houses and thatched roofs and on reaching this place you may wonder how come outsourcing takes place out here but you must be amazed to know that here is a tiny office surrounded by palm trees where you will see young people sitting in front of computers and undertaking BPO tasks such as keeping a tab on the expenses of Indian companies and also arranging for interviews for prospective applicants living in far off cities.

This is the office of GramIT which is making an effort to bring the benefits of outsourcing to some of the six lac villages in the country. Though the salary is meager but the staff is quite happy as it has not only augmented their income but also prevented them from moving out of their village. Very soon you will see the organization expand from three villages in Andhra and bring more villages under its purview.

This will certainly change the face of India which lives in villages and if the work can move from U.S to India, then why not from Indian cities to the villages.

Via Businessweek

One of India’s top outsourcing company, Infosys has expanded to hospitality outsourcing. For this purpose it has entered into alliance with HVS International which is a New York based consultancy offering valuation services to the hospitality industry.

Infosys along with its partner will be helping to improve the productivity of its global hospitality industry clients. Infosys aims to help the hospitality industry with its IT based outsourcing and business process outsourcing services.

If Infosys has to survive in this highly competitive market, it needs to expand because margins are thinning down and with its brand name it will surely be able to contribute to the hospitality industry and also benefit from it.

Up till now India was known for IT outsourcing but now there is one more area where it is making its name and it is embryo outsourcing. People from West are viewing India as an attractive destination where they can rent a womb at considerably lower costs.

Both foreigners and NRIs are hopping to India in order to fulfill their dreams of a child and the numbers of foreigners is comparatively more. The couples are even not concerned about the genetic pool changes.

This has also emerged as a cheaper option when compared with IVF. With this method no legal tangles are involved and with the biological adoption of the child the couple gets their privacy and social acceptance too.

This has surely brought smiles on the faces of the childless couples but what about the social issues involved.

India would be the leader in the IT supplier market in the year 2007. Russia is emerging as a strong competitor in the IT outsourcing market. As per reports the global services initiatives will be a key driver in shaping the top trends.

The major trend will be business transformation that will help the companies to leverage to make an improvement to standardize processes, gain new business, time-to-market and also to lower the costs.

With the European companies’ off-shoring work to countries like Philippines, China and India, the European market for global services would grow at a fast rate. India is expected to face competition from Russia. The Russian market for IT outsourcing is expected to register a growth of 40-45% in 2007. Russia is the third largest IT outsourcing supply market, behind India and China. The Russian IT companies have a specialization in high end software as well as embedded software product development. It looks like the Indian IT outsourcing has a strong time ahead.

Do you have an idea as to which new sector is looking at availing the services of outsourcing? It is steel manufacturing. SRMB Udyog is a nimble footed TMT bar maker that is looking at trying out the unique business model.

The company has entered into a buyback arrangement with secondary steel units in Jharkhand, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (India). The TMT bars are a premium construction grade of steel in these markets. The company has tied up for the production of 60000 units in a year in Allahabad and some 40000 units in Jharkhand.

This is one of a kind of outsourcing model that is being tried for the first time. By March 2008 they intend to reach a production capacity of 4 lakh tons. The company has also strengthened their distributor network and has around 500 dealers across the country. The success of the new model of outsourcing will help in the increased adoption of this model in other companies as well.

The hottest topic of debate in the presidential elections of France is that of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. Experts are of the view that this is not a big problem as many workers project it to be.

It is believed that the European protectionism is the only way to prevent the French society from suffocating of the world economic system. They believe that they need to develop themselves so that the development in China becomes a means of job creation. The only question that arises now is that why France has been lacking behind in doing so.

Outsourcing has been looked at with different view points from different people. The situation can be compared to that of half glass of water. The two sets of people will have different ways of looking at the same situation. Let us wait and see at the latest developments before passing a judgment on the situation.