Offshore for large companies & nearshore for small firms

I had a meeting with Alastair Mitchell, the CEO and co-founder of cloud collaboration platform provider Huddle. We were talking about the skills gap and how businesses are addressing this through the use of overseas suppliers.

He said skills shortages always exist in growing economies and businesses must address this through overseas skills. "There is more and more demand for high quality development resources and it is not just about cost but access to talent," says Mitchell.

There has been a lot of talk recently about start-ups and early stage companies being held back by the lack of skills in the UK and the difficulty getting visa's for overseas workers with the skills they need. There has even been a call from the mayor of London Boris Johnson for a special London Visa to make it easier for the city's start-ups to get the right staff. 

But the very different requirement of small growing companies and large established means a choice between nearshore and offshore.

Source url : http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/outsourcing/2013/11/offshore-is-for-large-companies-and-nearshore-for-small-firms.html

ADEC to start BPO services in Kenya

 Kenya’s efforts to become a business process outsourcing and sustainability centre received a major boost yesterday after an international provider of customised onshore and offshore outsourcing solutions opened office in Nairobi.  

The ADEC Group from Philippines signed a lease agreement with the Export Processing Zones Authority (EPZA). 

The partnership will allow the global company to start Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services in Kenya before the end of the year.

EPZA Chief Executive Cyrille Nabutola explained that his organisation would provide offices for the company to start their operations of developing services for exports.

Source url : http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2000097014/bpo-sector-set-to-grow-as-adec-enters-market 

Automation can't take place of Offshore Outsourcing

The use of so-called "software robots" to automate IT management tasks can provide cost savings and improve service delivery but will not eliminate the need for offshore outsourcing, a new report by analyst firm Ovum has found. 

The growing adoption of cloud computing and spread of virtualisation beyond servers into networking and storage means that systems management tasks can automated more than ever before. 

Some commentators have suggested that this poses a threat to the offshore IT outsourcing industry, whose business model is built on provide cheap labour to perform repetitive IT management tasks of the sort that are increasingly being automated. 

View Source: http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy-and-innovation/123457191/automation-will-not-kill-offshore-outsourcing--ovum-says#sthash.qufmUpZh.dpuf

Offshore Outsourcing Survey

 Job security is a primary concern for information technology workers, according to Monster’s Workforce Talent survey. However, IT workers ranked at fourth most satisfied with their jobs — behind engineering, finance and healthcare professionals.

The survey found 87 percent believe that an increasing number of IT jobs are consistently being outsourced offshore, and 53 percent feel that offshore outsourcing leads to lower employee morale. Only 14 percent feel outsourcing is necessary for global business growth.

Sixty-eight percent of IT professionals believe there are IT jobs available and 42 percent are confident in finding a new job in the next 12 months, the survey found.

View Source: http://www.staffingindustry.com/Research-Publications/Daily-News/Survey-Offshore-outsourcing-a-top-concern-for-IT-workers-26577#sthash.xgfJFbUG.dpuf 

No longer a controversial topic

Offshore outsourcing is no longer the controversial topic it was 10 years ago, when the practice of contracting with workers overseas regularly made headlines. But while offshoring has since become standard practice for many U.S. businesses, few are employing anything close to best practice when it comes to managing their offshore relationships, according to a recent study of 240 executives by the Offshoring Research Network at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.“
Companies still have lots to learn,” says Arie Lewin, professor of strategy and international business at Fuqua and the director of the study, which has been conducted annually since 2004. “Many companies have really perfected supply-chain management, but they’re not applying those same capacities to the sourcing of business-support functions.”
Source url : http://www3.cfo.com/article/2013/3/global-business_offshoring-outsourcing-overseas-hiring-jobs

French IT services company acquired by Tata

Tata Consultancy Services is to acquire French IT services company Alti in a bid to increase its presence in the European market.

India's largest outsourcer said in a filing Tuesday to the Bombay Stock Exchange that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100 percent of the equity in privately-held Alti for €75 million (US$97.5 million) in an all-cash transaction.

The deal will help it grow in France, regarded as the third largest IT market in Europe after the U.K. and Germany, TCS said in the filing.

Alti's key customers include French companies in banking, financial services, luxury, manufacturing and utilities sectors. It has 1,200 employees across France, Belgium and Switzerland, and had revenue of €126 million in 2012. The company is currently owned by its management and two private equity firms.

Source url : http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/458464/tata_acquire_french_it_services_company_alti/

Most of the Drupal (CMS) based services are outsourced

Drupal, the PHP based free CMS is among the most fun and most flexible open source content management systems today and Drupal is most sophisticated, versatile and effective for re-designing and re-creating interactive websites.

Just to add to the above, Drupal is also easy-to-maintain, easy-to-install and easy-to-configure. It comes with a bunch of add on features that make your website more interactive, more fun and more search engine friendly!

While all this stands true, it is a well known fact that most Drupal web development services are outsourced. The question is why? What are the benefits of outsourcing Drupal development projects, if any? I mean, we all know the benefits of Drupal… but the benefits of ‘Outsourcing’ Drupal Web Development; interesting!

Source url : http://www.spyghana.com/most-drupal-web-development-services-are-outsourced/

Wipro targetting Canada

When Indian outsourcing magnate Azim Premji flew into Calgary a short time ago, he liked what he saw: a vibrant oil and gas industry with a big appetite for information-technology services.

“Canada is turning out to be an important market for us; we plan to invest much more here than in the past,” said the chairman and controlling shareholder of Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd., with the air of a prospector who has rediscovered an overlooked mineral field. “I think broadly we neglected it.”

Source url : http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/indias-it-outsourcing-giant-wipro-takes-aim-at-canada/article9744470/