Outsourcing opens doors in global village

The Age
THE offshore outsourcing train has left the station and Australia doesn't even have a ticket, according to FoobooOnline.com president Martin Conboy. Mr Conboy is in the business of match-making. His newly launched FooBooOnline.com (Front Office Outsourcing Back Office Outsourcing) business offers a website portal as a single point of contact between buyers and suppliers of outsourcing services in the Asia-Pacific marketplace. He believes businesses that do not assess their outsourcing or offshoring opportunities will be left behind. "If we don't get on to this train then overseas organisations will come over here and where (companies) have got comfortable … will eat their lunch," Mr Conboy said. "Unless they've got something so fantastically special that people are prepared to pay a premium for it, they'll go out of business. Outsourcing is not a blip on the economic radar. It's a growing and accelerating trend. Currently the market is worth about $US130 billion ($A180 billion)." more...

Outsourcing equity research

Hindustan Times
If numbers are anything to go by, then the KPO industry will help create a very bright future for India. The story of the KPO’s is fairly new and KPO’s might not be very large, however the numbers predicted are huge.The Mckinsey Global Institute estimates that the volume of offshore outsourcing will increase by 30 to 40 % for the next 5 years. 3.3 million Jobs will be generated overall by the year 2015. Deloitte research predicts the outsourcing of 2 million financial sector jobs by 2009. In this scenario India will act as the primordial sea using its biggest strength - that is a supply of at least 2 million graduates and 300,000 Post Graduates - to help the KPO industry evolve into a mass job generator. There are many countries in the race. However, today all roads le4ad to India. more...

iGate Corp hives off Canadian ops for $9.3mn

Business Standard
iGate Corporation, the $267 million, US-based IT services firm, has sold its Canadian operations for $9.3 million.iGate Corp holds close to 82% in iGate Global Solutions, India.According to a statement issued by iGate Corp, the sale of its Canadian professional services operation was completed during the fourth quarter of calendar 2005. "The transaction concludes our strategic initiative of divesting all non-core operations to focus strictly on our more profitable and faster growing offshore and US professional services businesses," the statement added.According to senior officials of the company, the Canadian operations were mainly into systems integration, and this was the reason for exiting the operations. The company further added that during the past year it substantially completed its client rationalisation process and the quality of its offshore client base has improved significantly. more...

Bush: No protectionism to safeguard offshored US tech jobs

Silicon.com
US President George Bush has ruled out any protectionist measures to safeguard US jobs that are under threat from companies outsourcing work overseas to countries such as India. On a visit to India last week Bush admitted that it is "painful" for those people who lose their jobs as a result of globalisation but he said the US rejects a policy of protectionism. In a free economy, every citizen has something to contribute. He said in a speech at Purana Qila in New Delhi: "It's true that some Americans have lost jobs when their companies moved operations overseas. It's also important to remember that when someone loses a job, it's an incredibly difficult period for the worker and their families." But he said the answer is to embrace that competition and the new opportunities it creates. more...

Bush drops hints of relaxing H1B visa limit

Business Standard
An inconspicuous banner outside the lane that led to the Indian School of Business (ISB) seems to have caught the eye of US President George Bush."Would you like to work in the US?" was what the banner asked. Well, Bush seems to have answered that question during his interaction with a select group of entrepreneurs at the ISB - an indication of relaxing H1B visa rules was given.At present, the cap on H1B visas is 65,000 for knowledge workers, and India Inc has been urging the US to relax the limit. Sashi Reddi, chief executive officer of AppLabs Technologies, said the issue of H1B visas did come up during the informal interaction, and there was an indication that the US was actively looking at relaxing the limit. Reddi was among the 16 people selected to meet Bush. more...