offshore outsourcing

Offshore outsourcing, a type of business process outsourcing (BPO), is the exporting of IT-related work from the United States and other developed countries to areas of the world where there is both political stability and lower labor costs or tax savings. Outsourcing is an arrangement in which one company provides services for another company that could also be or usually have been provided in-house. Offshore simply means "any country other than your own." The Internet and high-speed Internet connections make it possible for outsourcing to be carried out anywhere in the world, a business trend economists call globalization. In general, domestic companies interested in offshore outsourcing are not only trying to save money in order to be more price-competitive against each other, but also to enable them to compete with businesses in other countries.

Critics of offshore outsourcing worry that if too much IT-related work is farmed out to other countries, home-grown IT talent will "dry up." They point out that once a company begins outsourcing overseas, they will find it difficult to reverse the trend and justify paying more in salaries, taxes, and job benefits for the same work they used to outsource. Proponents maintain that the judicious use of offshore outsourcing will help make all IT workers become more productive and allow companies to develop more agile and responsive business models, which in turn, will raise salaries for domestic workers in all countries.

According to the IT research and analysis firm Gartner, by the year 2004 more than 40% of IT-related businesses will either be investigating the possibility of offshore outsourcing or will have already shipped some IT-related work overseas.

Today’s businesses thrive on the ability to provide maximum service at lowest cost. This perhaps explains the present intense wave of IT Outsourcing to tech-suave countries like India.

Today, India is an attractive intellectual capital for global Information Technology companies. As government policies become more liberal in terms of reduced licensing requirements, fewer restrictions on investment, etc, IT outsourcing to India helps to leverage from immensely intelligent, skilled and dedicated resource at great cost-effective prices.

Offshore outsourcing to India means gain in more than one way. It is an opportunity to expand service levels beyond ordinary. It is an opportunity to tap into reduced labor cost, 24/7 productivity, dedicated staffing, technical expertise, excellent communication and interaction, and industry-leading infrastructure, making it easy to do business effectively.

Web application development, data management, custom product development, CRM and ERP solutions, e-commerce solutions, quality assurance and testing, technology helpdesk and support, are few of the numerous services being outsourced offshore in order to utilize skilled professionals globally.

However, there is more to IT outsourcing than what meets the eye.

For offshore outsourcing to be successful there must be an effective beginning-to-end corporate strategy that accounts for the various likely product development challenges. Cultural issues, transitional costs, excessive service-level expectations, security concerns, stringent legal issues, etc, are few factors to consider before moving towards outsourcing offshore. It may be best to deal with a customer-focused company having years of proven experience offering dedicated offshore outsourcing services as per client’s specific requirements.