Indian outsourcing blows cold then hot
By Techgirl

Outsourcing is all about western companies using the quality and cost effectiveness of giants like India, China, Philippines and Russia.  English speaking countries like India and Philippines have a head start.  One certainty is that India will continue to get business for another decade.  What is sometimes surprising, even shocking, is how wide off the mark some research on this subject is.

Last week,   respected market research major Gartner Inc released a 2007 report to Indian media. (Many people are asking the same question on why should a report from 2007 be released now.  Perhaps as a marketing exercise).  The Gartner report published last week says that India remains the "undisputed leader" in a list of the top 30 countries for offshore services.  The research firm based in USA applied a list of 10 criteria to find its top 30 outsourcing countries.  While India is the “undisputed leader” in offshore services, rivals China, Russia and Brazil are credible alternatives.  In Europe and Middle East, Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland are strong in language skills. In the African continent, only South Africa gets a tick for language skills.

The same Gartner report says lack of Government support is preventing Americas from evolving from ‘attractive destinations” to achieving their full potential.  Mexico was rated very good in this aspect.

The Gartner report from 2007 ended by saying that the Asia Pacific region boasts the most countries in the top 30 list.  India was the leader in outsourcing closely followed by China.   Indian Government strongly supported outsourcing, and our infrastructure and educational systems was “very good”

Yawn, all a bit boring as all this is well known.  What is more interesting is that Gartner was singing a different tune less than 2 years back.   In August, 2005, Gartner released a report which said that by 2007 India may lose its position as the “Outsourcing King”.  And that a shortage of workers and rising wages could see India losing 45 percent of its market share by 2007.  In 2005, Gartner predicted that Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Eastern Europe would challenge India’s BPO industries.  The report ended by saying that India’s 85 percent ownership of the BPO market could be reduced to 45 percent.  To their credit, even in 2005 Gartner predicted that there would be no challenge to India’s software industry.

According to NASSCOM figures released in July, 2008 the Indian BPO industry grew by 30 percent last year.

All goes to show that sometimes predicting the future can be risky business.  And that it is okay to release a report from Dec, 2007 if the predictions have come true in July, 2008.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog
http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com