Outsourcing - a hush-hush affair

BANGALORE: Silence is golden. So it seems. Suddenly, many MNCs have turned cold to the idea of announcing expansion plans in Asian Countries, due to the fact that it may cause ripples and repercussions back home (in the US, Europe.)

Since 1986 India has enjoyed the outsourcing boom, first software, then dot com and the latest to hit the circuit is BPO. While software took Indian skills to the land of opportunities, dot com made them millionaires and according to media reports BPO is brining them back to India. The Y2K saw the largest ever deployment of Indian IT skills in the US, UK and developed countries.

The US government opened up their gates for the IT immigrants, mostly from India, to set right the Y2K bug. Today, a reversal is taking place. An India Development Center may have been a much touted expansion for an MNC in the recent past, but of late, most of them avoid even a casual discussion regarding the same.

Today Indian companies are not willing to share their complete client list and its not competition that’s holding back. Clients are said to be very particular about the non-disclosure agreement and very stringent about it. The recent protest against Infosys' 'Telstra' win in Sydney may well be a sign of things to come.

In the US the general view is that, "outsourcing" is not yet high on the political agenda. However, if the economy does not pick up, local, political compulsions may force the leaders to align themselves with one or the other group. This may just queer the pitch.

While the big question as to, how big this issue blows up is yet to be answered, what is made to believe by one and all is that the US economy cannot afford to close doors on outsourcing. While we await developments, here's a compilation of the anti-outsourcing reports that was featured in CIOL: