Planet Outsourcing

Clinical research outsourcing is gaining steam but certainly not in India as it is suffering here due to infrastructure bottlenecks, lack of awareness and skilled people. This seems to be stunting the growth of clinical research outsourcing in India. The figures are pretty disturbing since just two hundred and fifty of the half million clinicians are trained in conducting trials.

A Ramamurthy, Chairman, Huclin Research said:

CRO is an integration of doctors, pharmacists and pharma companies. The demand is huge but the supply is low. General hospitals do not have adequate infrastructure to support the activity, thus causing a slump in the industry growth

Above all social activists are protesting clinical trials since they are against the idea of using Indians as guinea pigs and they are probably right. It seems that it will take a while before clinical research outsourcing catches up in India.

Via economictimes

Outsourcing has reached every department of a company and is serving their needs too. Now companies have even includes indirect procurement function to their outsourcing menu which includes functions such as repair and operating, maintenance and contract services. This has enabled companies to focus on their core competencies.

Companies are adopting indirect procurement outsourcing in order to focus on innovation, brand building and capabilities which will help them in achieving long term sustainable growth.

Companies are probably outsourcing almost of all their function because competition is getting tougher and if they have to survive then they need to cut their costs which would only be possible with the help of outsourcing and it will help them to achieve their targets.

Via industryweek

Costs are rising in India and realizing this Indian companies are looking for other low cost destinations in order to remain competitive. TCS which is one of India’s largest outsourcing companies has struck an outsourcing joint venture deal in China which also includes Microsoft as a minor partner.

The major stake is held by TCS followed by three Chinese companies. This joint venture will be addressing the needs of the Chinese domestic market and the global markets. Indian companies are entering China in order to not only service the domestic markets but also meet the requirements of neighboring markets such as Japan.

This step will not only benefit Indian companies but even the Chinese who also wants to lead in the software outsourcing market. Let’s see who emerges as a leader in this outsourcing race.

Via cio

The fourth quarter of 2006 was one of the worst for the outsourcing industry when compared to last five years in terms of value of outsourcing contracts. The value of the contracts was worth $78 billion. What caused this poor performance were shorter contracts of small value. This is not expected to cause a slowdown for the Indian outsourcing market since the Indian companies have made a name for itself in the outsourcing arena and with the size of the deals getting smaller Indian companies have been able to create value for themselves due to the availability of skill sets.

A number of Indian companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro have been gaining from single process and specialist deals and therefore have been eating into the market share of traditional service companies. As compared to 2002 India has garnered 7% of the market share which is quite good.

India is expected to emerge stronger over the next three to five years but competition is hotting from other Asian countries and Europe too therefore it needs to prepare itself for it well in advance.

Via financialexpress

Costs are rising in India and if it wants to stay competitive then it should move some of its operations to low cost countries if it would like to retain its outsourcing crown. It would be good for India if it could opt for back office operations in Eastern Europe or Mexico and it would also increase its proximity to its clients in U.S.

The past decade has seen India become a leader in the outsourcing sector with its revenues too spiraling. Big companies such as Infosys and TCS have already set up shops overseas in order to serve their major clients and the remaining outsourcing companies in India should also follow suit if they would also like to remain competitive.

Pradeep Udhas, global partner, KPMG:

The model I see emerging is... India will be a hub of outsourcing and the spokes could be in China, Malaysia, Europe, Brazil or Sri Lanka.

Via manufacturing

F&B sector in India is looking for a makeover in order to give its customers world class service. This sector is looking towards outsourcing and some of the basic products such as breads and cookies have already been outsourced and it is expected that it would move on to pre packaged ready to eat food products.

Now probably you will see the kitchens and kitchen theaters getting more refined and now there would be more stress on substance rather than the performance of the chef. Get ready to see the products being produced at an ISO certified setup.

Next time you visit a bakery shop in a five star hotel in India and find the pastries out there simply - don’t thank the chef but do thank the management for adopting the outsourcing model. Good food at ordinary prices!!

Via expresshospitality

India continues to get outsourcing work from India despite the fact that U.K. employees have been protesting it with all their lungs. Though some takeovers by Indian companies in U.K have led to a number of jobs being created in U.K. it has subsided the level of protests but has not ended it completely.

A number of companies are looking to India for outsourcing their jobs and shed their losses but since political factor plays a dominant role in U.K. it would be difficult for the companies to outsource jobs by shedding employment.

The counter jobs created by Indian companies will certainly help in bringing down the pressure created by the people who have been thrown out of employment and also make outsourcing transactions between U.K. and India a smooth journey. Lets hope for the best.

Via mangalorean

With competition steaming up among multinationals and the product life cycle of products getting shorter day by day companies are now focusing on their R&D and therefore R&D management is gaining importance. Companies have now started to outsource various functions such as R&D and design and this has enabled them to focus on their core functions such as marketing and sales.

Companies have been outsourcing their R&D functions since it has enabled them to gain on costs and at the same time get quality results coupled with strengthening of process development expertise and infrastructure. R&D outsourcing has achieved further impetus due to the emergence of global sourcing strategies of MNCs which has enabled companies to serve various markets.

Bigger companies such as Alcatel and Intel have increased their R&D investments and set up their centers in a number of developing countries. All this points out that R&D outsourcing is in and companies are quite comfortable with it.

Via Bangkokpost

The major areas where cost saving is obtained in the ICT industry is that of movement of infrastructure like servers and networks out of house. As per researches it has been found that there is an average cost reduction of 27%. It has also been found that a saving of 20% been achieved in the outsourcing of application development. On the other hand the outsourcing of helpdesk services reduces the costs by 13%.

The research also reveals that outsourcing ICT infrastructure provides the highest average return by providing the most consistent success and lowest amount of risk. It has also been found that main reason for outsourcing is the increased efficiency. The reduction in overhead expenditures or the access to ICT expertise to internal training and management are really important.

The research was conducted by Info-Tech Research Group. The research included interviewing of around 1600 businesses in North America in 2006.

Via zdnet

China is catching up with in India in the field of outsourcing. The latest achievement for China has been the bagging of a new outsourcing contract of the telecom giant Avaya. As per recent reports the call centre industry in china is expected to grow at 22% this year.
There has been a huge increase in the labor force engaged in the IT outsourcing industry. The total number of people engaged in IT companies and bank hotlines has reached 1, 58,000 this year an increase of 22% from the preceding year. On the other hand the workforce engaged in call centers in India is expected to rise at a rate of 16%.

Major multinationals have shifted their call centers to china to take advantage of the cheap labor. The major multinationals that have shifted to China are HP, Motorola and Dell Inc. Now to make the Chinese call centers competitive delegations are coming to India to learn from them. Guess they will learn from us and then leave us behind.

Via newkerala