It’s the subject of hot debate. It’s been proclaimed as the surefire success formula; it’s been reviled as the cause of loss of jobs. Love it, or hate it, but you can’t ignore it. Offshoring is here to stay. For a long time.

Offshoring is hardly a revolutionary concept. Since time immemorial, businesses have looked to procure various factors of production from the cheapest source. With advancement in transportation and technology making quick work of physical distance, buyers have looked further ashore for sourcing their requirements. It’s brought untold riches to companies, and in turn, their employees and stakeholders.

Today, offshoring stares people in the face as never before. Shifting production jobs overseas or importing products made in high quality, low cost economies brought benefits to consumers in the developed world. But now, services are being outsourced to countries like India and the Philippines or to near-shore destinations like Ireland and Canada. In fact, CareerPlanner.com, an internet based career testing company, has compiled an interesting list of jobs based on their susceptibility to outsourcing. While the wave is creating a rumble at certain levels, most business leaders are unanimous in their endorsement of offshoring. After all, who wouldn’t want more for less?

The interesting thing is that entrepreneurs are also taking to offshoring with alacrity. It’s not at all unusual to find that a startup’s business plan includes an offshoring model. It is well known that most venture capital firms do not fund technology companies that don’t have an outsourcing angle built into their strategy! If you’ve been thinking about it lately, you might want to know the chief reasons why offshoring is such a big draw. "Happy About™ Outsourcing”, a compilation of the experiences of a number of professionals who have taken the plunge, is available for purchase at But if you want a quick idea about how offshoring can work for you, read ahead.

Generate significant savings: Lower costs remain the key driver in decisions to offshore. English speaking countries in the developing world have a pool of talented people, who cost a fraction of their counterparts in the United States or Europe. Overall operating costs are also lower, although the differential in real estate and telecommunication costs is shrinking.

Leverage expertise: Offshoring is gradually moving up the value chain. It’s not just customer service or low end processing work that’s being sent out. Certain countries like India, are rich in technical manpower, and are great destinations for shifting engineering design or scientific research work to.

Work 24x7: Now, here’s a way to stretch time. By moving certain processes offshore, for example, data entry, you can take advantage of time zone differences, so that work continues even while you’re asleep. That’s a big plus.

Optimize resources: Offshoring allows you to make the most of your resources – any savings generated in staff costs could be ploughed back into new technology or for diversification. Proponents of outsourcing say that moving lower end jobs to low cost destinations frees up resources to hire more expensive, high level, human resources in the home country.

Of course, offshoring has its share of pitfalls as well. Data security is the foremost concern, especially if the information to be handled by the vendor is of a confidential nature. It is also very important to ensure that the outsourcing partner is adequately equipped to handle disaster recovery. And finally, there are political undertones to the whole issue. The offshoring decision is not an easy one, but then, most important ones rarely are!






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