I found an article about outsourcing, which gives us a very clear overview of where we were and where we are going in outsourcing. I work on my international outsourcing vision every day and I often wonder ‘where will we be in 10 years?’. From below figure (to see the big size, click the image) I see a few key points for our future:

- Timeline. Outsourcing brought $12 billion to India in 2004. India has grown even bigger on this number since 2004 and many other countries have followed India’s example in the IT outsourcing field. These numbers will keep on growing for the decades to come.

- Timeline. In 2010 companies still choose price over quality (the below document is about the US, I believe in Europe this might be different) and companies are frustrated about the quality of work. In my opinion, there are 2 important things here. First, price is important at the moment because of the worldwide recession. In times of rapid economic growth, companies need people and outsourcing is a requirement for companies to grow as shortages in IT staff make it hard to find talent. Second, companies report frustration because global sourcing is still in its infancy. People need to gain experience in order to know how it works. As more companies outsource, more frustration is reported. As people gain more experience in the next years, outsourcing will become more normal, eventually making it normal practice in  any company. (more…)

In my previous article, I wrote about personal values in the offshoring context. In this article I want to discuss the role of people in making offshoring work. Some questions related to this subject:

• Who are the people in my offshore team?
• How do I create support for offshoring among my people?
• Does the culture of my company match with the supplier’s culture?

Based on my experience with offshoring success and failure, I would say that companies that place an accent on the people, increase their chances. Let’s take a look at the three above questions. (more…)

I just wrote a comment on Computable, a famous Dutch IT newspaper; the article discusses a research from Ordina about the under estimation of the human side in outsourcing. Speaking about the human side of outsourcing puts two central subjects into my mind: (more…)

If you are working in IT, I think that you have pondered over this question somewhere in the recent past? Two or three years ago, when the economies were booming, the main question was ‘how can I attract the talent to let my company grow and provide my customers with high quality services’. The answer was not to be found in the local labor market, because there simply were not enough people. Today, with more supply on the labor market, companies think different.

Some facts from research

Our company provides services mainly to customers in Northern Europe. In a recent study of Nyenrode University, it is found that 35% of Dutch companies have already offshored part of their activities or are planning to do so.     (more…)