The Global Outsourcing Guide updated in 2004 by CIO provides a worldwide look at trends in Outsourcing and IT Service capabilities available globally.

In 2003, CIO Magazine surveyed 101 IT Executives and eighty-six percent said they already offshore application development and 26 percent said that they already offshore their call centers. And they predicted those numbers will rise. The update to this study in 2004 indicates that the gap between India's market share and that of other countries keeps growing. Companies increasingly feel comfortable sending bigger and bigger projects to India; companies that have never before outsourced feel comfortable dipping their toes in Indian waters.

Another trend is U.S. companies balancing their offshore risk by going to neighbors like Canada and Mexico. Canadian suppliers can handle highly complex projects better than other nations, and our neighbor to the north has a deep familiarity with U.S. business mores. And Mexico continues to offer an attractive cost structure. Both have geographic proximity going for them in the race for U.S. outsourcing contracts.

Finally, new members of the European Union-such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary-are an enticing nearshore option for Western European enterprises and Europe-based U.S. businesses. Their costs are low now, but they won't stay that way.

This guide covers the strengths and weaknesses of the outsourcing market in 24 countries, and can serve as a primer for navigating an increasingly globalized marketplace.

IT Outsourcing's Friend in Congress: Rep. Bill Thomas, a free trade proponent, keeps the door open to offshore labor.

If the drummer is remote from the orchestra, why does the drummer need to be in New York...and not in Mumbai or Manila?
Search for article "Broadway Pit Shrinks; Drummer Is Sent to Room" if link does not work, [free] login is required.

Poor as it is, India is rich in well-educated, English-speaking, young people. It has become a prodigious exporter of their remote services: as skilled software coders and accentless call-centre voices; as long-distance sales-people and invisible insurance clerks; as diligent medical-record transcribers and patient number-crunchers. Multinational financial firms have been among their best customers. Now India wants to clamber up the value chain, offering more sophisticated services. Finance, a business that runs the gamut of sophistication from bean-counting to quantum physics, seems as good an industry as any in which to try to lure more work from expensive homelands to cheaper Indian pastures.

• India aims to become the back office for the world's banks

Dvorak Blog on TCS

Interesting Companies in India

The Good Life in a Bombay Call Center

• Far from a dead-end job, for college-educated Indians, answering phones for Wipro Spectramind's global clients is a plum position.

The Building Blocks Of Global Competitiveness Innovation and growth in a global market require a focus on quality and results, not just cost. Outsourcing is just one piece of the complex puzzle.
By C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan

Indian Market Booms, but changes loom while the Indian outsourcing market's still strong, tier-1 suppliers are under pressure from local niche providers and accelerating demand.

Pegging the Right Outsourcing Strategy

• As business-process outsourcing takes hold, the provider landscape is shifting and so is the way outsourcing decisions are made. CIOs must consider: What's the key value proposition and what differentiates my business from that of competitors?

Outsourcers get into RFID competition offshore IT companies Infosys and Wipro ready to help customers sort out supply-chain challenges.

India's dwindling IT Labor advantage and increasing wages in India suggest that cost can no longer be the sustainable competitive advantage realized through outsourcing.

November 1, 2004

Financial Firms Hasten Their Move to Outsourcing
Saritha Rai, New York Times, 8/14/2004

Exploding the Myths of Outsourcing
McKinsey Quarterly, July 2004

Calculated Risks

November 8, 2004

You Can't Outsource Everything: from CIO Magazine, Nov 1, 2004 Some outsourcing is inevitable. But as the former deputy CIO of Procter & Gamble learned, it's crucial to retain enough work in-house to train the next generation of IT leaders.

The Inner Cost of Outsourcing: from CIO Magazine, Nov 1, 2004. When contemplating outsourcing, CIOs should first think about their people.

February 24, 2005

Medical Companies Joining Offshore Trend, Too: The exporting of jobs is now spreading to a crown jewel of corporate America: the medical and drug industries. The outsourcing of some life sciences jobs could be seen as evidence that American biotechnology companies, like their counterparts in other industries, are doing nothing more than building global connections that help make them more competitive around the world.

March 22, 2005

Gartner: Many Offshoring Projects Destined to Fail
Gartner, Inc., an industry analyst firm, reports that the global market for customer service outsourcing is expected to grow from $8.4 billion in 2004 to $12.2 billion in 2007. Those same analysts, however, also report that through 2007, 80 percent of organizations that outsource customer service and support contact centers with the primary goal of reducing cost will fail.

Offshoring to India: Best Practices
The cost advantage of doing certain jobs in offshore locations, most notably in India, is sufficiently compelling that this practice has spread to nearly every major industry. But offshoring can lead to various results, positive or not so positive, depending upon how well it is handled. Some companies have been so successful that they are continuing to expand their Indian operations rapidly, while others have been disappointed by missed deadlines, exasperated customers, and unexpected costs from high employee turnover. This newsletter first describes a common set of issues and then focuses on offshoring best practices for working with Indian partners.

July 25, 2005

Outsourcing Case Studies

September 21, 2005

Ten Myths about Jobs and Outsourcing

"Offshoring" Service Jobs: Bane or Boon and What to Do?

The Economist Survey on Outsourcing Nov 2004: The World of Work