This page provides links to offshore outsourcing news articles published in November 2003. Please note that over time some links may become broken as the various web sites are updated. We endevour to keep the links up-to-date, but inevitably some broken links will occur.

For the latest news, visit our News Digest. For information on offshore outsourcing events, exhibitions and conferences, visit our Event List. For information on our offshore outsourcing consultancy services, visit our Home page.

You can also read November's News Reviews.

News Archive

30 November 2003 Going outside, Staying on top

MIS Magazine

...According to James Longwood, Gartner’s Asia-Pacific research director, half of all outsourcing projects worldwide will fail to meet management expectations in 2003...

...Common pitfalls include a lack of business planning and change management processes, bad communication, poor vendor management, and an incomplete service level agreement (SLA)...

28 November 2003 Indiana ditches Indian outsourcing contract

Out-Law.com

The state of Indiana last week dropped a $15.4 million outsourcing contract for IT services with an Indian software company. The move was part of an initiative launched by Governor Joseph Kernan, intended to protect local companies and jobs...

28 November 2003 Unions shift stance on offshore

vnunet.com

...Unions are offering to work with - rather than against - UK companies that opt to send work offshore, after admitting that the trend is inevitable..

...the time had come for unions to look at the issue from a global, rather than local, perspective...

..."The way the whole issue is handled by employers from now on will determine how the debate within trade unions develops,"...

27 November 2003 'We help clients maximise returns'

Sify News (Interview)

...What are the key factors for the growth of ITeS-BPO?

Since the late '90s, the BPO momentum is continuing to grow globally as factors that force companies to focus on core competencies intensify...

26 November 2003 Indiana nixes offshore deal to protect jobs

ZDNet

Citing the need to protect local businesses, the state of Indiana terminated a software contract it had awarded to an Indian company...

..."The difficulty we had with this contract was not with the company itself,"...

...The procedures we had in place virtually knocked Indiana companies out of the running...

25 November 2003 The Pitfalls of International Outsourcing

TMCNet

...This article singled out India as a problem area for contact center outsourcing and followed up on a much more positive article...

...I have heard a number of complaints about Dell’s customer service coming out of India...

...[Colwell and Salmon] make sure that their Indian agents are as good as they can be and even offer Indian agents to come to their Albany headquarters to train and American workers to go train in India...

25 November 2003 Rise in DBA outsourcing predicted

SearchOracle.com

One Forrester Research analyst is predicting that 30% of U.S. companies will outsource their database operations in the next five years...

...last week, International Data Corp. issued a report saying that the concern over offshore outsourcing and its impact on U.S. employment is overblown...

25 November 2003

MIS Magazine

...Over 40 per cent of new development activity is now done offshore, reports Meta...

...Despite political instabilities in India and other parts of the world, more and more companies realise the strategic and financial advantages to using offshore resources for both programming and business processes...

25 November 2003 DBAs defend against offshore outsourcing

SearchOracle.com

...Database administrators must expand their skill sets and take on business management roles to protect their jobs as the popularity of offshore outsourcing increases...

23 November 2003 Tech Workers Struggle To Answer Overseas Threat

New York Times (Subscription Required - Free)

After 27 years as a computer programmer, Mr. Marx said, he thought his technology skills ensured he would be employed in that field for many years.

22 November 2003 Cognizant to recruit 3,000 more, scouts for BPO acquisitions

The Economic Times

...The $365-million turnover Cognizant Technology Solutions has chalked out a major expansion plan that envisages adding 3,000 people to its Indian off-shore development operations by the end of 2004...

21 November 2003 IT job strategies: What the risks of outsourcing mean for IT workers

IT Manager's Journal

...20 per cent of companies that farmed out IT work did not achieve any cost reductions 9.2 per cent experienced an increase in costs just 21.1 per cent reported a cost savings greater than 20 per cent...

...the costs of coordination, communication, and administration are typically higher when a company outsources...

...If Gartner is right, and outsourcing is an irreversible trend, then there will be both crisis and opportunity for U.S. workers in the months and years to come...

21 November 2003 Study: Offshore Outsourcing May Not Cause Flood Of Lost Jobs

InformationWeek

...Lost jobs and the decline of American IT may not necessarily follow from the rise in offshore outsourcing...

"...The jobs that were lost in the past years have been disproportionately attributed to this movement of work overseas."...

...In other words, the United States will be losing people rather than jobs as the population ages. The result, assuming growing GDP, will be a demand-supply gap of 5.6 million jobs by 2010...

21 November 2003 IDC Reports Spike in Offshore Outsourcing

TechNewsWorld

...While offshore hiring likely will spread across a wider range of IT services going forward, an economic upturn and resulting demand for skilled technology workers are likely to offset resulting job losses and might even result in a worker shortage...

21 November 2003 U.N. report: Economic pressures push outsourcing

ZDNet

...companies in the United States and Europe are looking for competitive advantages and cost-cutting measures when they look to developing countries for IT outsourcing...

...The UN agency said offshore outsourcing has been successful in India. Services providers are also starting to gain a foothold in other developing countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam. As those countries improve their service levels, outsourcing business there should rise, the study found...

20 November 2003 US investors keen to invest in India

Rediff.com

...The US industry has a lot at stake, as India is an emerging opportunity with a huge market, he said. Joint efforts, he added, are needed to help the industries of both the nations...

..."The US India Business Council is very actively, yet subtly, involved in allaying the fears in the United States over jobs being lost due to offshore outsourcing."...

20 November 2003 An Irresistable Offshore Tide For Jobs

Channel 4000

...Presidential hopefuls all pledge to stem the migration, and Congress recently reduced the number of H1(b) visas, which allow foreigners to work in the U.S. In the 2003 fiscal year, which ended in September, the U.S. issued some 195,000 H1(b) visas. In the new fiscal year, the number has been cut to 65,000...

...The chief executive officer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest information-technology services company, isn't impressed by political rhetoric or posturing. The economics of "offshoring" are just too powerful for businesses to ignore...

19 November 2003 India garners a slice of global IT storage biz

Silicon India

India is emerging as a key market for computer storage companies. While EMC is planning to invest $100 million, India along with China and Brazil will get a significant part of Hitachi Data Systems investment of $500 million...

19 November 2003 India concerned by U.S. move to restrict IT trade

Silicon India

..."The proposed anti-legislature measures by a few states in the U.S. on IT outsourcing and offshoring needs to be addressed squarely, as such attempts would only hinder ongoing progress in high technology areas between the two countries,"...

19 November 2003 Cognizant Expansion Driven by Offshore Financial ServicesCognizant Expansion Driven by Offshore Financial Services

Computer Business Review Online

...Offshore IT services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp will double the headcount at its Hyderabad, India offshore services center to 600 in 2004...

09 November 2003 IBM backs India bet with realty leases in Kolkata

Silicon India

...IBM Global Services India has taken on lease about 1,15,000 sq ft of office space in the city [Kolkata]. The company has taken up some 70,000 sq ft space in Millennium City...

19 November 2003 Godrej buys US-based BPO firm Upstream

Silicon India

...The Godrej group on Friday said that it has acquired Upstream, a US-based call centre company...

19 November 2003 Accelrys launches R&D centre in Bangalore

Silicon India

... Accelrys Software Solutions on Tuesday announced the formal launch of its R&D centre here with an investment of a "couple of million dollars"...

19 November 2003 Phillippines, China to give India hard time for offshore BPO

Silicon India

...Phillippines and China would give India tough competition in offshore outsourcing operations in the coming years, according to a BPO firm based in the US...

19 November 2003 M2I mantra = US jobs for us

The Times of India

...HSBC and other companies represent just the tip of the iceberg, with some 750,000 British jobs being moved offshore over the next decade. In the US, figures are even higher with predictions of 3.3 million ... by 2015...

18 November 2003 Outsourcing: IT's all about China?

CIO

...India may be today's hottest international IT outsourcing destination, but an expert says China is poised to dominate the market within the next few years...

..China currently has 400,000 IT specialists. Though that's approximately 200,000 less than India, as many as 50,000 new workers are expected to join China's workforce annually. As a result, cost-per-worker numbers will remain low in China for the foreseeable future...

17 November 2003 Capita Arrives in India

MCN Direct Newswire

...Capita has established its first base in India through a joint venture with Indian outsourcing provider Mastek...

17 November 2003 FEARS for UK plc as smaller businesses join exodus offshore

Financial Times (Subscription Required)

...In many cases, small businesses find that offshore outsourcing of labour-intensive tasks means they have to hire more staff locally in order to manage...

17 November 2003 "Rupee appreciation has had a substantial impact on margins"

Business Standard

...The decline in profits is led by a 4 per cent fall in gross margins as staff costs on project-related employees have increased over the last year and utilisation has also been lower...

15 November 2003 OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING - Bad Blood

CIO

...vendors staffing their booths at the end of the show had plenty of time to talk about the growing U.S. backlash to offshore outsourcing...

"...If the jobs don't come to us, they will go somewhere else—business people want to get high quality in the most cost-efficient way possible..."

14 November 2003 Is U.S. tech self-destructing?

United Press International

...The real advantage that overseas competitors may have against their U.S. counterparts in the tech sector, however, is the cost of top management. In the United States, this can run into the billions, even the billions per person...

...The short-sighted greed of U.S. tech management, and the foolishness of a regulatory system that has allowed them to hide the true costs of their overpayment, will bear true responsibility for this development [The re-location of business offshore].

14 November 2003 US divided over outsourcing of jobs

Rediff.com

...experts are divided over the issue of outsourcing white collar jobs from the country with some being of the opinion that it may slow down the nation's job growth, while others stating that the phenomenon was healthy for the country as it could create more sophisticated jobs doing away with less productive ones...

13 November 2003 2003 ITtoolbox Outsourcing Survey

IT Toolbox

...The survey results illustrate the growing trend among companies worldwide to outsource some or all of their IT functions, often choosing outsourcing providers abroad....

13 November 2003 IT must make choices--or lose jobs

ZDNet

...Even as the economy rebounds, information technology professionals face a new threat to their livelihoods...
...This is a tough environment, where IT professionals have to make a key decision: Find a role to play on the offshore bandwagon or fight against the movement of business abroad. The survivors will be those who embrace offshore operations as yet another opportunity...

13 November 2003 Global software bounces back

Asia Times

...While a long, rough two-year ride for the global information technology industry appears to be just about over, the implications for the United States are ominous...
...Two of the US's biggest IT firms - Hewlett Packard and IBM - have told their employees that there will be almost no hiring in the US, and that all new jobs will be created overseas...

12 November 2003 Outsourcing by The Numbers

Tech News World

..."Offshore outsourcing is just one small part of a (US)$5 trillion global outsourcing market. This market is growing by more than 15 percent per year, and the offshore component is certainly among the fastest growing,"...

10 November 2003 10 secrets of successful offshore software development,

SearchCIO.com

"Extrasourcing" is disciplined, strategic and appropriate offshore software development that calls for extended or virtual groups offshore. If it's done right, it can make offshore software development a success in 10 ways...

11 November 2003 CIO budgets still looking lean

SearchCIO.com

...Analysts with Forrester Research Inc. say that even though studies point to an awakening in the U.S. economy and an IT spending uptick, you'd never know it by looking at the budgets of CIOs....
...24% of IT execs surveyed listed exploring outsourcing alternatives as a major theme for 2004, and 17% said that moving IT work offshore was a priority...

11 November 2003 Offshore outsourcing seen reshaping the tech sector

The Globa and Mail

...The trend of outsourcing to lower-cost foreign jurisdictions is reshaping the technology sector...
...Increased competition dictates that technology players find low-cost partners or contract out work...

11 November 2003 US-based i-Vantage expanding India operations

Indo-Asian News Service

...This offering allows companies to own an offshore subsidiary/cost-centre without the traditional hassles associated with deploying and running an offshore operation...

09 November 2003 Outsourcing of high-tech jobs OK

Almeda Times

...The good news is that the economy is growing and businesses are spending once again, on high technology...
...A lot of high-tech jobs are moving offshore. Is that a cause for concern?...
...So you might well assume that I would see the number of high-tech jobs moving offshore as a troubling trend. And yet, I do not...

09 November 2003 Offshore outsourcing will affect everyone

The Inquirer

...The flood of work and the loss of jobs has many people questioning what is happening and there are signs that offshore outsourcing is starting to become a heated political issue...
...In India a call centre worker can expect a monthly salary five times the national average and more than twice as high as other openings for university graduates; a software worker with two years experience can expect a salary more than 13 times the national average...
...On the other hand, those workers in the countries signing up for outsourcing are seeing their livelihoods drastically altered...

05 November 2003 Offshore Outsourcing: A Natural Law?

eWeek

...Reading the messages, I grew intrigued by the widespread belief that jobs must flow out of a country to find the cheapest source of production, regardless of the long-term consequences...
...Many readers believe that this practice is a natural law and not just the result of short-term thinking by business managers...

04 November 2003 High-Tech Firms Say Outsourcing Is Necessary for Survival

e Commerce Times

Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn., research and consulting firm, estimates that 10 percent of all the jobs at US information-technology vendors and service providers and 5 percent of all tech jobs in more general companies will shift offshore by the end of next year...

03 November 2003 Managing outsourcing

Network World Fusion

...Gartner vice president Ian Marriott proclaimed the average IT department will look very different in 2010 than it does today. Rather than being staffed by groups of technical people, a company's IT department will have lots of relationship managers - people who will manage the company's outsourced suppliers...

03 November 2003 Merger widens outsourcing geography

CNET News.com

Outsourcing specialist Headstrong merged with rival TechSpan on Monday to form a $100 million company with operations across India and the Philippines...
...will specialize in so-called offshore outsourcing, providing services such as call center customer support through its overseas locations....

03 November 2003 Market Research Firm Touts Outsourcing's Cost-Savings

CNET News.com

...AMR Research says the number of IT organizations that outsource will jump from 20 percent to 50 percent in three years...
...“Cost savings from outsourcing are too compelling to ignore. The more aggressive a company's outsourcing strategy, the more money it can save. Unfortunately, risk increases along with savings.”....

03 November 2003 Quality improves as outsourcing grows

VNUNet

In nearly all organisations across every sector of the market, outsourcing is an issue that soon crops up...
...with more than 80 per cent of respondents not going offshore at all. However, nearly 90 per cent of those that did go offshore expect to spend more on this in the future....

03 November 2003 Europe, Asia roll out red carpet for Indian firms

The China Post

Hit by a wave of IT outsourcing, European and Asian trade missions vied with one another at a technology fair here [Bangalore, India] Sunday to lure Indian firms to open offices in their countries to arrest the flight of jobs...

01 November 2003 Back to boom time

Business Standard

Here are some figures for anyone who has doubted the future of the Indian software industry...
...These aren’t isolated cases. After two years of cost-cutting and living with trimmed margins, the Indian software industry is once again on a roll. Most companies have announced improved business and have revised projections upwards...

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Offshore Outsourcing Press Releases

19 November 2003 Offshore Outsourcing Forum - Best Practices and Strategies for a Seamless Transition

Strategic Research Institute (Press release)

...In response to this growing industry need, Strategic Research Institute will present Offshore Outsourcing - Making the Journey Work for your Corporation (http://www.srinstitute.com/ci277) on January 21-22, 2004 at the Westin New York at Times Square...

13 November 2003 Outsource Partners International Secures Up To $20 Million

Business Wire (Press release)

...OPI plans to use the funds to expand production capacity in India, to payoff indebtedness incurred in connection with its acquisition of the Business Process Outsourcing Division of KPMG LLP in May 2002, and for general corporate purposes...

12 November 2003 Demand For Keane's Nearshore Outsourcing Services Spurs Recruitment Drive

Yahoo (Press release)

...Due to an increasing demand for its nearshore Application Outsourcing services, Keane is seeking to attract IT professionals from Nova Scotia, Ontario, and other Canadian provinces...

12 November 2003 Over 40% of New Development Activity Is Now Outsourced, Says META Group; India Is Still Preferred Offshore Country

Business Wire (Press release)

...Last year, the average percentage of new development from outsourcing providers and external contractors was 35.9% worldwide...

09 November 2003 DataArt, from Russia, to Provide Competition to Off-Shore Outsourcing Business to India

Business Wire (Press release)

...US-based management team and ability to recruit the most creative and highly qualified Russian programming talent have been leading factors in the firm's success...
...Russian programmers, scientists, and researchers are always high-return talent assets...

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News Digest Review

Offshore Outsourcing News Review - Saturday 22 November 2003

This week saw a few interesting developments in the current outsourcing debate. One article suggested the high costs of Senior IT executives were a key driver for IT businesses to move offshore.

Towards the end of the week the widely reviewed IDC report indicated that the scale of projected job losses may have been over estimated, and there was a resurfacing of earlier reports that rather than suffering job losses, the US may face a lack of technical resources in the next 6 years.

Offshore Outsourcing News Review - Saturday 15 November 2003

Everyone's still talking about the arrival of the long awaited upturn in the global economy, and the feedback I've received from outsourcing vendors from various countries indicate that the "Green shoots of recovery" are out there.

But the media's response remains mixed, and news announcing the arrival of an upsurge is tempered by the on-going concern about the effect of offshore outsourcing on indigenous employment. The indications are that this topic is gaining the inertia of a full blown media bandwagon. No doubt the column inches devoted to this will continue to grow over the next few weeks and probably months. This is to be welcomed provided it leads to intelligent debate, and not knee-jerk reactions from the politicians.

Despite this only being our second week, I'm pleased to report that people are starting to copy us on their press releases. In fact we've set up a press release section, which if demand warrants, we will split off into a separate page. You can send your press releases and feedback on the News Digest to info@ecode.org.uk.

Offshore Outsourcing News Comment - Saturday 8 November 2003

The start of November was marked by a few articles from the outsourcing nations trumpeting the long awaited IT revival, and associated growth in outsourcing, which appears to be supported by published surveys. As the week went on there appeared - coincidentally? - a backlash from those countries losing jobs to outsourcing. This included a WTNH programme in the US Is your job at threat of being outsourced?, and was augmented by some debate on the morality of outsourcing.

On the lighter side, Dilbert appeared in the news, concerning the appearances of the Indian character Asok, an alumnus of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).

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