MUMBAI, INDIA: When it comes to combating challenges, collaboration plays an important role. At India’s premier annual outsourcing event organized by Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies), industry leaders focused on the buzzword of the year 2009: Collaboration. Asian outsourcing countries, including established locations such as China, India and the Philippines urge the industry to join hands and make things even for those who still fall in the emerging outsourcing countries categories such as Taiwan.

“Asia is the place to make ICT happen,” said Ashank Desai, Chairman, Mastek and President, Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO). ASOCIO aims to build IT network through a strong bonding between Asian economies established and emerging as outsourcing locations. “Companies can synergize to develop ICT in the region. There is so much of variation so there is a huge opportunity to synergize.

“Such collaborations are going to give two most important things: Consolidated resources, flexibility for customers,” said Aoron, Liu, Vice President, Beyondsoft, a China-based IT Outsourcing (ITO) organization that is now a member of ASOCIO. For Chinese companies there is another opportunity to look at collaboratively, and that is to focus on Chinese domestic market that is fast growing, according to Liu.

Collaboration seems to be the platform to learn best practices to differentiate Asian outsourcing countries from peers. But how will such platforms particularly help when the American economy (the major buyer of services) is down?

“The world is becoming flatter and the global financial crisis has permanently impacted the brand America. And as the world is becoming flatter, more work will go to other countries, not necessarily to India. Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and China will, therefore, grow. However, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) will remain India’s key areas. Gain for Asia Pacific region has a huge role to play. It has to play three major roles: First, it has to work in an integrated manner; second, India has to play the leadership role; and third, the world becoming flatter and we all have got common challenges that we need to overcome through such collaborations,” said Kumar Parakala, Director, Australia, KPMG, a research and advisory firm.

Initiatives from governments are going to play a major role. For instance, even in this uncertain environment, the Filipino government has a firm plan that claims to increase the country’s IT-BPO industry by 10 percent in the next two years and aims to increase full-time employee base to 9,000 that will help to increase ITO sector not only in the Philippines but in the Asia Pacific region, according to the Jonathan Defensor De Luzuriaga, Executive Director, Industry Affairs, Business Process Association, Philippines. “Each country has a unique proposition and we need to leverage that,” he adds further.

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