India and Outsourcing

In the last few years there has been considerable talk about
oursourcing and it's relationship with india.

I thought i would put some light on this subject in perspective.
Globally corporations have realized that to be successful in this
competitive market place one needs to be cost effective. And what best
way to be cost effective then to outsource some of your work to some of
the cheap labour countries like India. One of the big corporations who
realised this first was GE. They set up the backoffice operations in
India, way before the current outsourcing wave started. At first they
concentrated on moving the call center operations, then they moved on
to move some of the high end jobs to India which includes R&D, medical
research, financial research etc. This resulted in huge savings for GE.
GE was one of the first companies to realise the value of Indian
workforce. India has a very good education system with maximum emphasis
on science and related fields. The number of english speaking science
graduates which pass out every year from India would be more than US
and the EU combined. Pre liberalization era in India (pre 1991), most
of the talented students migrated to the US for pursuing various career
oppurtunities. They became very successful in the US. Companies like
Microsoft, Intel has loads of Indians in US. Indians were not only
forming their presence in software development, but also in high end
research in software, Atomic sciences etc. One fifth of the scientists
in NASA are Indians according to one report. Silicon Valley also has a
sizeable Indian population.

The Indian economy opened up in 1991 and it was achieving on an average
6 % GDP growth since then. This resulted in an increase in focus on
software development in India. Many Indian companies like Infosys,
Wipro, TCS etc flourished during this period. They were able to put
forth an unbeatable value proposition to the US corporates- software
development at high quality at low prices. First some of the software
development and maintenance work were outsourced to India. Then the
focus shifted to other kinds of outsourcing. Major Banks outsourced
their back office operations to India. Post 2000 there has been an
increased focus on this kind of outsourcing. Call centers came up on
almost every nook and corner of India employing thousands of people.
Lately outsourcing has shifted to other areas like high end research,
financial research,Tax return filings, medical transcription etc. The
ousourcing bug has not even spared religious activities.

There is now a talk of outsourcing farming to India. Major African
countries are asking for Indian farmers to work in their countries.

Last few years there has been tremendous growth in India. There has
been increased focus in infrastructure, Telecom, education and poverty
eradication. All these are possible because of the growth in the
economy which is in turn fuelled by the growth in the IT sector. Now
almost all major fortune 500 companies have some work or other
outsourced to India.

I won't be surprised if in the next few years India would emerge as a
major power in the world.

India has definitely arrived.