When the outsourcing phenomenon fist started taking the world by storm, software maintenance and development services were mainly outsourced. From the onset of outsourcing, India has been the main offshore vendor providing an entire range on IT and ITES services. After the first phase of outsourcing software services has passed, the next phase took on a whole new turn when companies started offshoring all their back-office work, such as accounting services, payroll processing services, procurement services and claims processing services amongst others. The second phase of outsourcing has been rightly called business process outsourcing.
With the rise in outsourcing, there have always been debates and arguments about whether outsourcing business processes to India, China and other countries is a good idea or not. Though there are cost advantages, companies wonder whether outsourcing is a good option. One major reason being, that some jobs require knowledge about the local culture, domain expertise in a particular industry or even a good understanding of business practices. These concerns have made companies cautious about outsourcing. Some organizations have even burnt their fingers at outsourcing and then taken their jobs back to their own country. Continue reading
