India outsourcing outsourcing - Idaho you still have a chance
India outsourcing outsourcing - Idaho you still
have a chance
Kris Gopalakrishnan, the head of India’s giant software company Infosys, explains the rise of an economic phenomenon about to engulf the world: outsourcers are outsourcing themselves.
Once known for sucking jobs out of call centres and IT departments in the west, Indian technology firms are re-exporting them to wealthier nations as wage inflation and skills shortages at home reverse the process.
Infosys spent $250m this year buying the Polish call centres of Philips, the electronics group, manned by workers who speak half-a-dozen European languages. The company is building up a network of offices stretching from Mexico to eastern Europe to China to provide an “anytime, anywhere” solution to its clients.
Infosys is not alone. Wipro, another hi-tech titan, has been on a spending spree, buying up companies in America, Finland, Portugal and Europe for hundreds of millions of dollars. Azim Premji, Wipro’s chairman, raised eyebrows on Wall Street when he talked this year of setting up divisions in Idaho, Virginia and Georgia - US states he said were attractive because they were “less developed”.
Not that he meant anything critical by “less developed”. Probably referring to local politics and ethics. And education.
Posted: Wed - October 17, 2007 at 09:18 AM