Outsourcing moves to knowledge arena

BPO business may soon be passe as the country is ready to become the leading destination for knowledge process outsourcing in areas of healthcare, pharma, biotech, writes Aditya Raj Das.

“INDIA is the fountain of all wisdom and knowledge”, thus goes the ancient saying. Knowledge commands power and power begets wealth. This is now increasingly being reflected in the international arena with the country fast emerging as a power to reckon with in the area of knowledge-based industries.

A study conduced by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has revealed that India is all set to move from being the most preferred business process outsourcing (BPO) destination to a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) destination.

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Stop Identity Theft; Send Your Data Offshore

Opponents of offshore outsourcing are quick to seize on events that show the practice in a risky light. Their most recent exhibit A: a British tabloid reporter arranged to illegally purchase sensitive customer data from an Indian business-process-outsourcing worker for about $5.00 per name. Yet here in the United States, we don't need to go to such lengths to obtain the raw material for identity theft--we can just wait for it to fall off the back of a truck.

The Sun's report sent offshoring's many detractors into instant "I told you so," mode. "I told you outsourcing is risky." "I told you it invites data theft." "I told you your greed would come back to bite you."

What the anti-outsourcing crowd doesn't want to acknowledge, however, is that reports of fraud in India grab headlines precisely because they are rare. Western companies send more than $2 billion worth of BPO work--along with all the associated customer files--to India each year, yet instances of serious security breaches are few and far between.

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Fears on outsourcing exaggerated: WTO

Outsourcing of computer and information services (CIS) to countries like India, Ireland and the Philippines by developed countries is neither a harbinger of high levels of employment in the host countries nor of massive loss of jobs in the latter compared to the overall employment market in the countries concerned, according to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"Most of the expectations and fears related to the size and dynamics of offshoring of IT services are exaggerated. At present, the impact of offshoring services jobs is far stronger in the popular perception than on actual production, employment and trade patterns,'' says an `essay' on offshoring of services released as part of the WTO's annual World Trade Report 2005.

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