Planet Outsourcing

Financial outsourcing could have picked up but thanks to the regulatory issues which have inhibited its growth. This issue has caused a burden on the companies and it is acting as a roadblock to outsourcing finance and outsourcing business. This was revealed in a study conducted by LogicaCMG which is a leading consulting firm. The reason attributed to slow growth in the financial outsourcing arena is increasing regulation and importance on governance. The study stated that just seven percent of the companies were only outsourcing their finance and accounting functions.

Sixty eight percent of the firms studied stated that the current financial regimes were holding them back and the strict sanctions were was an overriding criteria in the desire of the CFO’s to retain direct control of their finance function.

Probably the companies should try and request the government for relaxation of certain issues if they would like to gain benefit from the world of outsourcing.

Via pr-inside

Air New Zealand now does not want to take the course of outsourcing and has decided to go against the idea of outsourcing jobs to India believing that it would not meet their needs. Earlier the airlines was ready to forego around seventy finance jobs in the company so that it could save out around $NZ20 million by outsourcing these jobs. Earlier the company had plans to outsource jobs to Fiji but the political instability over there caused them to shift their plans to India.

The airline issued a statement:

We have now formed a view that India would not meet our requirements, so the outsourcing proposal has been withdrawn and this was communicated to staff earlier this week.

Fearing that they might lose their jobs the employees’ gave their node for changing the work conditions and SFWU Jill Ovens stated that this move was a nice step forward for the finance staff. It is being said that the airlines dropped its plans after facing difficulties in outsourcing work and government pressure. To me the latter reasoning looks correct though.

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Via livemint

Samuel J Palmisano, Chairman, President & CEO of IBM will personally meet chairman of Reliance Communications Anil Ambani and pitch for an outsourcing deal worth $1.5 billion. In case IBM lands up with the deal it would be the third major contract for the company in India. IBM has a strong presence in India and is looking forward to focus on IT outsourcing contracts. As of now both the companies have declined to comment on the any developments taking place between them.

It is expected to be a ten year contract and four companies had been ahortlisted for this purpose - Accenture, EDS, IBM and T-Systems. Reliance Communications is looking forward to outsource its wireless business to a service provider for bringing down it’s projected IT spending and also remains asset light. The company would save to the tune of twenty percent and as a result also concentrate on its core competencies.

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Via business-standard

Post 9/11 U.S has been losing out on its talent at a steady pace since the government has been handing out contracts to private agencies due to which it is facing lack of talent and expertise for its national security and defense programs. There has been an increasing demand for complex technology and now the situation is such that the country either does not have the expertise for high tech projects or lacks appropriate talent for overseeing the work.

Due to this the government is turning to contractors for undertaking sensitive work. If you check the figures then the figure of private federal contractors has reach 7.5 million and this figure is four times higher as compared to the federal workforce. This highlights the plight of the government and the increased dependence on outsourcing. The whole blame cannot be even put on outsourcing since to an extent the government employees had been undertaking faulty work and this was resulting in losses for them. We cannot solely put the blame on outsourcing only since the government too is a culprit to an extent.

Via: pr

Year 2006 was not a good year for the outsourcing industry but 2007 surely looks a promising year for it. With US economy slowing down the India BPO industry is all set to benefit from it even though it may be for a short period of time. Companies looking to tied over the recession are expected to increase the outsourcing of IT services. It might see a revival of the long term deals in the industry but with US presidential elections lined up for 2008 it outsourcing to India could emerge as a serious political issue.

K Sridharan, Chief mentor, Hexaware stated:

What really drives US firms is their bottom line and they will only increase outsourcing to cut on cost as employee cost accounts for around 40 per cent of their operating costs.

The Indian BPO sector is expected to grow at the rate of 28% this year and generate revenues worth $47.8 billion in 2007. Indian companies are looking forward to further incentives from the government since they have been facing increasing competition from other countries in the Asia Pacific region and since it is an industry which revolves around costs it may emerge as the deciding factor between the leader and the follower.

Via rediff

It’s praiseworthy if you would like to emulate the success of a particular company but it is deplorable if you would like to achieve it by riding on the success of that company. Abacus Outsourcing and Consultancy Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad based company has been barred from using the trademark and trade name Tata or distinctive Tata ‘T’. The company has also been barred from using www.tatalimited.com and its account too has been freezed.

All this happened because it was found out that the company was using the trademark of Tata and announcing itself as a subsidiary of Tata Group with the promise of offering jobs with the esteemed Tata Group of companies. The company was collecting money on the pretext of offering jobs in the Tata Group and when it came to the notice of Tata it approached the court for seeking to stop this illegal activity. The High Court decision has saved hundreds of youths from getting duped and I hope people reading this would avoid getting in the trap of this company.

Via domain-b

The Indian animation industry has matured and now it is looking forward to reverse outsourcing in order to fill the talent shortage being faced in the country. Up till now Indian companies were dependent on production works outsourced by companies such as Sony or Disney but now Indian companies have reached a stage where they are willing to take up pre and post production work.

Now the Indian industry is churning out animation films independently with some acclaimed films such as Ramayan and Hanuman. Up till now they have ten films to their credit. Though the demand is rising but the industry is facing lack of talented professionals for this field and therefore is opting for reverse outsourcing.

India is looking to outsource their production work to countries such as Malaysia, Philippines and Taiwan since the country is facing dearth of talented professionals. India has been able to attract work from other countries but the lack of talent in the country is acting as the biggest roadblock and if this weakness is countered the animation industry might be churning comparable number of movies to Bollywood.

Via hindu

Its not just employees but even students who now fear outsourcing. The number of students enrolling for IT courses has been declining since they fear that may end up either losing their job or may never find a job in the IT industry which has increased dependence on outsourcing. This has caused various IT departments across colleges in US to come up with an image building exercise and they are trying to convince students that there is a shortage of IT professionals in the country and in no way they would have to suffer if they opt for IT.

A number of colleges are trying to promote the field of IT and clear the various misconceptions which have cropped up in the minds of youngsters due to outsourcing. University of South Florida IT department is trying to attract students by offering technology based movie nights coupled with free popcorns. It hopes that it will be able clear the misconceptions in the minds of the students. It looks that the government would need to step in with a brand building exercise or its pool of IT talent may keep on shrinking hence leading to increased dependence on other countries.

Via zdnet

Baseball is one of the most favorite games among the Americans and when this game comes to your mind you cannot forget names such as Frank Robinson, Lou Brock, Joe Black and Monte Irvin to name a few. In the 2007 basketball season there were a few African Americans on the playing field and now you see a mix of people from various ethnicities comprising of Asians, Latinos and of course whites.

Outsourcing has struck baseball too and now major league baseball are setting up their training camps in Latin America since it becomes easier and cheaper to find out and sign up budding talent. Some experts say that baseball is now outsourcing Black talent. Latin athletes are dying to make it to baseball and players from countries such as Colombia, Dominican Republic and Cuba want to make into this sport.

I never thought that outsourcing would reach the field of sports too and with it making a mark in baseball the day is not far off when we will see other popular sports too taking the route of outsourcing.

Via thesop

With the need to bring websites among top ranks in a search engine webmasters have been using search engine optimization or SEO to achieve the same but since this work requires lot of efforts therefore now they are outsourcing this work in order to improve upon their search engine ranking. By outsourcing SEO to a third party it relieves you of the pressure for bringing your site among the top ranks and since these are specialized companies therefore you can be sure of some good rankings for your websites.

These companies have specialization in the area of SEO and can help you in getting a better Google page rank which everybody dies for. Though its is emerging a good option but fingers are being pointed at the techniques being used by these companies for improving the rankings of the websites and it is being said that this could be harmful in the long run for the existence of the site. Also you might lose control over your website therefore discuss all the terms clearly with your SEO company before handing over the job to them since its you who might have to suffer in the long run if things go haywire.

Via market-day