Resumo de The Offshore Nation: The Rise Of Services Globalisation

Title : The Offshore Nation: The Rise of Services Globalisation
Author : Atul Vashistha
Publisher : Tata McGraw ? Hill, New Delhi (Rs 750)

Offshore Outsourcing is here to stay

By Dr George Karimalil

Offshore outsourcing has assumed a new meaning after it became one of the contentious issues in the recent polls conducted to elect the President of the United States. The issue of outsourcing is not something new to the people of America. In fact for most part of 2003 and 2004, India was the butt of almost all outsourcing jokes in the American media.

The fun was later replaced by a kind of distrust and fear when the US Presidential aspirant decided to make it a campaign issue out of the jobs lost to offshore operations. Since the distrust and fear cannot survive for too long in the face of stark business realities, the storm over the whole issue slowly died down on realising the economic advantages of outsourcing many business processes to convenient locations such as India.

For that matter no one in his senses can ignore the truth and say outsourcing is a passing phenomenon. On the other hand outsourcing is here to stay. Irrespective of our liking or disliking, our competitors will go the same route and steal a march on us.

It is in this light an authoritative guide to the global outsourcing options beyond their own shores is something thousands of businesses in the United States and Europe would welcome. The book is authored by the Vashistha brothers ? Atul and Avinash. Since 1999 they have been advising hundreds of US-based outfits looking for an offshore location for their operations through their California-based NeoIT.

This is not the first book on the subject. However unlike the previous publications, the information given by the authors is not restricted to an India perspective. In fact at the launch of the book in Bangalore in South India, the authors said the India players in Business Process Outsourcing need to aim a little a higher than call centres. In fact new pockets of excellence in IT-enabled services were emerging from unexpected quarters such as Russia.

The book therefore rightly looks at outsourcing as a borderless, global phenomenon. The core of the book is a straightforward comparison of offshoring destinations such as India, the Philippines, China, Russia, Canada and Ireland, using criteria such as government support, infrastructure, educational system, cultural compatibility and proficiency in English. This chapter alone should serve as a right signal to the Indian industry.

The two new ways of outsourcing ? third party operators and captive units run by the parent organisation ? are well treated and the trade-off candidly explained. The total cost of offshoring is something that is not always easy to quantify. The immediate benefits of what is known as arbitrage ? the raw price difference in hourly wage rates may soon be offset by hidden costs of management changes, training, site visits, monitoring. The authors spell out all these with stark numbers. In short, their long experience of dealing with corporate houses that have considered the outsourcing option gives their book a touch of class that most other works might lack.

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