Malaysia Outsourcing Challenge

At the briefing, Bobby Varanasi, Outsourcing Malaysia's head of marketing and branding, also presented findings from an IDC report, commissioned by Outsourcing Malaysia and the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), on Malaysia's outsourcing landscape.

The study revealed that the local SSO sector faced serious challenges that must be addressed for the industry to compete against global rivals.

Varanasi said the IDC report highlighted that the health of the country's outsourcing business "could be better".

According to the study, for on-shore service opportunities, business deals from local companies was "almost nil" and there were few business wins involving Western companies. For near‐shore business opportunities, despite Malaysia's proximity to growing economies, the country was not as attractive as India or the Philippines, the report said.

"Offshore business opportunities, despite possessing the requisite infrastructure and catalysts, we have not seen any growth in demand for Malaysia as an offshore destination," the report noted. "Further non‐availability of key management capabilities to create and engage with global clients is fully lacking in a competitive context."

IDC also highlighted the need for local players to offer scale and volume and bottom‐line savings by creating "portfolio" services, and not simply offer discrete services such as call centers or custom development.

"Provide value and top‐line impact by focusing on 'vertical' solutions--Malaysia's price points cannot afford low rates for non‐core discrete services, given higher cost structures in the country," it added.

The report also called for "aggressive adoption of outsourcing in the domestic marketplace" to support local providers going global. It recommended local providers work with foreign players as prime sub-contractors to acquire capabilities, scale and knowledge of global service delivery, rather than try to obtain end-users as key clients.

Other key findings of the IDC report:

Malaysia's total technology and technology-enabled services market, including shared services, outsourcing, joint ventures and partially-owned subsidiaries, is estimated to be US$3 billion with a projected compounded annual growth rate of 17 percent.
Government, financial services and insurance, and manufacturing, design and integration sectors present the largest market opportunities. About two-third of local market is dominated by foreign vendors that have inked large deals in these sectors.
Key vendor criteria include scalability, capability and skillsets, and reliability.
Niche market opportunities exist for local players in hosting, remote management and engineering services for computer aided modeling (CAD), prototyping and testing, in oil and gas and automotive sectors.
Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.

 

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry In Cebu

In Asia, the chief business process outsourcing (BPO) destination is the Philippines. Zoom in and you’ll realize that next to the capital city Manila, Cebu City ranks second as the next favorite outsourcing destination in the Philippines. And you probably wonder why.

There are several factors why the outsourcing industry in Cebu –popularly knows as the Queen City of the South – is as vibrant and interesting as its city.

Outsourcing in Cebu means utilizing a great amount of skilled and competent workforce at lower costs. Compared to Manila, Cebu has a lower cost of living. Although Cebu City holds a number of pulsating and first-rate restobars and other entertainment destinations, Cebu offers an affordable yet more than comfortable lifestyle to young and old individuals alike. In fact, according to surveys, expatriates prefer retiring in Cebu more than in any other cities in the Philippines.

Cebu’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is alive because of the growing and increasing number of foreign investors in the city. There is an increase in the number of inbound and outbound call centers, information technology outsourcing companies, transcription companies, and English Second Language (ESL) learning institutions. The increasing number of investors is an implication of the growing trust and satisfaction of foreign companies in investing in Cebu City when it comes to business process outsourcing services.

Aside from the natural light disposition of the Cebuanos (the Cebuano people), the workforce in the Queen City of the South generally can understand and communicate well in written and spoken English. The Cebuano workforce is an ideal workforce to tap to when you talk about customer service and telemarketing. Their can be accent is light or neutral and can blend well with English-speaking countries like United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

In Cebu, when you speak of inbound and outbound customer service, outbound telemarketing, and virtual assistant service, one BPO company slowly makes its way to the BPO acme.

Welive2Sell, a European-owned and managed business process outsourcing company, offers great work opportunities to professionals who are willing to work their way to the top of the BPO ladder. As a growing call center company, WeLive2Sell offers practical marketing and sales campaigns to help clients lower operational costs and increase revenues, and at the same time increase and retain their hold in their respective markets.

BPO Industry in India

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a broad term referring to outsourcing in all fields. A BPO differentiates itself by either putting in new technology or applying existing technology in a new way to improve a process.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the delegation of one or more IT-intensive business processes to an external provider that in turn owns, administers and manages the selected process based on defined and measurable performance criteria. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is one of the fastest growing segments of the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry.

Few of the motivation factors as to why BPO is gaining ground are:

* Factor Cost Advantage
* Economy of Scale
* Business Risk Mitigation
* Superior Competency
* Utilization Improvement

Generally outsourcing can be defined as - An organization entering into a contract with another organization to operate and manage one or more of its business processes.
Different Types of Services Being Offered By BPO's

1. Customer Support Services

Our customer service offerings create a virtual customer service center to manage customer concerns and queries through multiple channels including voice, e-mail and chat on a 24/7 and 365 days basis.

Service Example: Customers calling to check on their order status, customers calling to check for information on products and services, customers calling to verify their account status, customers calling to check their reservation status etc.

2. Technical Support Services

Our technical support offerings include round-the-clock technical support and problem resolution for OEM customers and computer hardware, software, peripherals and Internet infrastructure manufacturing companies. These include installation and product support, up & running support, troubleshooting and Usage support.

Service Example: Customers calling to resolve a problem with their home PC, customers calling to understand how to dial up to their ISP, customers calling with a problem with their software or hardware.

3. Telemarketing Services

Our telesales and telemarketing outsourcing services target interaction with potential customers for 'prospecting' like either for generating interest in products and services, or to up-sell / promte and cross sell to an existing customer base or to complete the sales process online.

Service Example: Outbound calling to sell wireless services for a telecom provider, outbound calling to retail households to sell leisure holidays, outbound calling to existing customers to sell a new rate card for a mobile service provider or outbound calling to sell credit or debit cards etc.

4. Employee IT Help-desk Services

Our employee IT help-desk services provide technical problem resolution and support for corporate employees.

Service Example: of this service include level 1 and 2 multi-channel support across a wide range of shrink wrapped and LOB applications, system problem resolutions related to desktop, notebooks, OS, connectivity etc., office productivity tools support including browsers and mail, new service requests, IT operational issues, product usage queries, routing specific requests to designated contacts and remote diagnostics etc.

5. Insurance Processing

Our insurance processing services provide specialized solutions to the insurance sector and support critical business processes applicable to the industry right from new business acquisition to policy maintenance to claims processing.

Service Example:

New Business / Promotion:
Inbound/outbound sales, Initial Setup, Case Management, Underwriting, Risk assessment, Policy issuance etc.

Policy Maintenance / Management:

Record Changes like Name, Beneficiary, Nominee, Address; Collateral verification, Surrender Audits Accounts Receivable, Accounting, Claim Overpayment, Customer care service via voice/email etc.

6. Data Entry Services / Data Processing Services

Service Example:

* Data entry from Paper/Books with highest accuracy and fast turn around time (TAT)
* Data entry from Image file in any format
* Business Transaction Data entry like sales / purchase / payroll.
* Data entry of E-Books / Electronic Books
* Data Entry : Yellow Pages / White Pages Keying
* Data Entry and compilation from Web site
* Data Capture / Collection
* Business Card Data Entry into any Format
* Data Entry from hardcopy/Printed Material into text or required format
* Data Entry into Software Program and application
* Receipt and Bill Data Entry
* Catalog Data Entry.
* Data Entry for Mailing List/Mailing Label.
* Manuscripting typing in to word
* Taped Transcription in to word.
* Copy, Paste, Editing, Sorting, Indexing Data into required format etc.

7. Data Conversion Services

Service Example:

* Conversion of data across various databases on different platforms
* Data Conversion via Input / Output for various media.
* Data Conversion for databases, word processors, spreadsheets, and many other standard and custom-made software packages as per requirement.
* Conversion from Page maker to PDF format.
* Conversion from Ms-Word to HTML format
* Conversion from Text to Word Perfect.
* Conversion from Text to Word to HTML and Acrobat
* Convert Raw Data into required MS Office formats.
* Text to PDF and PDF to Word / Text / Doc
* Data Compilation in PDF from Several Sources.
* E-Book Conversion etc.

8. Scanning, OCR with Editing & Indexing Services

Service Example:

* High speed Image-Scanning and Data capture services
* High speed large volume scanning
* OCR Data From Scanned page / image
* Scan & OCR paper Book in to CD.
* ADOBE PDF Conversion Services.
* Conversion from paper or e-file to various formats

9. Book Keeping and Accounting Services

Service Example:

* General Ledger
* Accounts Receivables and Accounts Payable
* Financial Statements
* Bank Reconciliation
* Assets / Equipment Ledgers etc.

10. Form Processing Services:

Service Example:

* Insurance claim form
* Medical Form / Medical billing
* Online Form Processing
* Payrol Processing etc.

11. Internet / Online / Web Research

Service Example:

* Internet Search, Product Research, Market Research, Survey, Analysis.
* Web and Mailing list research etc.

Challenges for a HR Professional in BPO

1. Brand equity: People still consider BPO to be "low brow", thus making it difficult to attract the best talent.

2. Standard pre-job training: Again, due to the wide variety of the jobs, lack of general clarity on skill sets, etc, there is no standard curriculum, which could be designed and followed.

3. Benchmarks: There are hardly any benchmarks for compensation and benefits, performance or HR policies. Everyone is charting their own course.

4. Customer-companies tend to demand better results from outsourcing partners than what they could actually expect from their own departments. "When the job is being done 10,000 miles away, demands on parameters such as quality, turn around timeliness, information security, business continuity and disaster recovery, etc, are far higher than at home. So, how to be more efficient than the original?

5. Lack of focused training and certifications

Given this background, the recruiting and compensation challenges of HR departments are only understandable.

Key To success
The key to success in ramping up talent in a BPO environment is a rapid training module. The training component has to be seen as an important sub-process, requiring constant re-engineering.
Business Process Outsourcing: The Top Rankers
WNS has emerged as the top BPO in India, pushing Wipro Spectramind to the second position, according to a survey done by NASSCOM. The basis of ranking is the revenues generated by the BPO companies in 2003-04, as per US GAAP. A list of top fifteen BPO companies in India is given below.

1. WNS Group
2. Wipro Spectramind
3. Daksh e-Services
4. Convergys
5. HCL Technologies
6. Zenta
7. ICICI Onesource
8. MphasiS
9. EXL
10. Tracmail
11. GTL Ltd.
12. vCustomer
13. HTMT
14. 24/7 Customer
15. Sutherland Technologies

The parameters for the survey was: Employee Size (Operation level executives), Percentage of last salary hike, Cost to company , Overall Satisfaction Score, Composite Satisfaction, Company Culture, Job Content / Growth, Training , Salary and Compensation , Appraisal System, People, Preferred Company: (Percentage of respondents of a company who named their own company as the preferred one), Dream Company: (Percentage of respondents in the total sample who preferred a particular company).
Employee Benefits Provided By Majoriy Of the BPO Companies

* Provident Fund: As per the statutory guidelines, the employee is required to contribute a percentage of his basic salary and DA to a common fund. The employer for this fund contributes as well. The employee can use the amount deposited in this fund for various personal purposes such as purchase of a new house, marriage etc.
* Gratuity: Gratuity is one of the retrial benefits given to the employee in which the employer every year contributes a particular amount. The fund created can be used by the employee for the purpose of long-term investment in various things such as a house etc.
* Group Mediclaim Insurance Scheme: This insurance scheme is to provide adequate insurance coverage of employees for expenses related to hospitalization due to illness, disease or injury or pregnancy in case of female employees or spouse of male employees. All employees and their dependent family members are eligible. Dependent family members include spouse, non-earning parents and children above three months
* Personal Accident Insurance Scheme: This scheme is to provide adequate insurance coverage for Hospitalization expenses arising out of injuries sustained in an accident. It is applicable to all the employees of JFWTC and covers total / partial disablement / death due to accident and due to accidents.
* Subsidized Food and Transportation: The organizations provides transportation facility to all the employees from home till office at subsidized rates. The lunch provided is also subsidized.
* Company Leased Accommodation: Some of the companies provides shared accommodation for all the out station employees, in fact some of the BPO companies also undertakes to pay electricity/water bills as well as the Society charges for the shared accommodation. The purpose is to provide to the employees to lead a more comfortable work life balance.
* Recreation, Cafeteria, ATM and Concierge facilities: The recreation facilities include pool tables, chess tables and coffee bars. Companies also have well equipped gyms, personal trainers and showers at facilities.
* Corporate Credit Card: The main purpose of the corporate credit card is enable the timely and efficient payment of official expenses which the employees undertake for purposes such as travel related expenses like Hotel bills, Air tickets etc
* Cellular Phone / Laptop: Cellular phone and / or Laptop is provided to the employees on the basis of business need. The employee is responsible for the maintenance and safeguarding of the asset.
* Personal Health Care (Regular medical check-ups): Some of the BPO'S provides the facility for extensive health check-up. For employees with above 40 years of age, the medical check-up can be done once a year.
* Loans: Many BPO companies provides loan facility on three different occasions: Employees are provided with financial assistance in case of a medical emergency. Employees are also provided with financial assistance at the time of their wedding. And, The new recruits are provided with interest free loans to assist them in their initial settlement at the work location.
* Educational Benefits: Many BPO companies have this policy to develop the personality and knowledge level of their employees and hence reimburses the expenses incurred towards tuition fees, examination fees, and purchase of books subject, for pursuing MBA, and/or other management qualification at India's top most Business Schools.
* Performance based incentives: In many BPO companies they have plans for , performance based incentive scheme. The parameters for calculation are process performance i.e. speed, accuracy and productivity of each process. The Pay for Performance can be as much as 22% of the salary.
* Flexi-time: The main objective of the flextime policy is to provide opportunity to employees to work with flexible work schedules and set out conditions for availing this provision. Flexible work schedules are initiated by employees and approved by management to meet business commitments while supporting employee personal life needs .The factors on which Flexi time is allowed to an employee include: Child or Parent care, Health situation, Maternity, Formal education program
* Flexible Salary Benefits: Its main objective is to provide flexibility to the employees to plan a tax-effective compensation structure by balancing the monthly net income, yearly benefits and income tax payable. It is applicable of all the employees of the organization. The Salary consists of Basic, DA and Conveyance Allowance. The Flexible Benefit Plan consists of: House Rent Allowance, Leave Travel Assistance, Medical Reimbursement, Special Allowance
* Regular Get together and other cultural programs: The companies organizes cultural program as and when possible but most of the times, once in a quarter, in which all the employees are given an opportunity to display their talents in dramatics, singing, acting, dancing etc. Apart from that the organizations also conduct various sports programs such as Cricket, football, etc and regularly play matches with the teams of other organizations and colleges.
* Wedding Day Gift: Employee is given a gift voucher of Rs. 2000/- to Rs. 7000/- based on their level in the organization.
* Employee Referral Scheme: In several companies employee referral scheme is implemented to encourage employees to refer friends and relatives for employment in the organization.
* Paid Days Off
* Maternity Leave
* Employee Stock Option Plan

Inspite of all these benefits, the attrition rate in BPO industry is very high, why?. What is the reason for an employee to leave? These and many more are the questions that need immediate attention from the industrial gurus.
Why people prefer to join BPO's?
In general a person with any graduation can join any of the BPO. Some BPO's like to take people with MBA but then again the specialization are of an individual hardly makes any difference. Again, this is the industry, where there is no reference checks and very often people don't even specify there exact age. Lets me share with you some of the reasons as why people prefer to join a BPO:

1. Did not get a better job.
2. Find nothing better to do.
3. Education level doesn't matter
4. Good work environment
5. Good Benefits
6. Flexibility of time
7. Attractive life style
8. Transport facility

Why people leave the BPO's?
When there are so many benefits associated with BPO industry….when there are so many privileges for the BPO employees than what makes them to change the company/industry?? Is it only MONEY that matters or anything else as well?? Here are some of the reasons for a BPO professional to change his/her job.

1. No growth opportunity/lack of promotion
2. For higher Salary
3. For Higher education
4. Misguidance by the company
5. Policies and procedures are not conducive
6. No personal life
7. Physical strains
8. Uneasy relationship with peers or managers

What they have to say?
With so much of uncertainty in the market…..people are trying their best to stop or to at least have a control on the attrition rate…let me share with you the opinion of the real gurus of the industry.

"Training is a very important aspect of the ITES-BPO industry"- Mr. Arjun Vaznaik, COO, Tracmail

" Career growth in the industry is robust and there is a long-term opportunity. The great growth momentum that the industry is witnessing is creating both vertical and lateral career opportunities. There also exists enough growth opportunities in the middle-management and supervisory level within the industry". - Aadesh Goyal, Executive Vice President & GM, Hughes BPO Services

"It will not be possible for the industry to arrive at a blanket agreement on poaching but bilateral agreements between companies are being signed. Basic norms are being put in place and code of ethics is being stressed upon by industry players within the sector with respect to HR practices. We are encouraging companies to adopt responsible behavior in order to ensure that the industry does not become a victim of its own actions. Industry needs to go aggressive but not cannibalistic." - Mr. Suren Singh Rasaily, Senior Vice President, NIIT Ltd. and Head Plantworkz,

Conclusion:
This is a descriptive report on BPO industry. I have tried to cover almost everything related to the industry. I like to have your opinion about the same. Even at the end of this comprehensive report, my concerns are related to development of employees in BPO, controlling attrition rate in BPO, can we have some standard industrial compensation package/ break-ups??

2009 Global Outsourcing

Global Outsourcing has been a booming success in the business market. It is the talk of the town since it was given birth to in the dawn of the millennium. Started from USA, then got outsourced to Asian countries of India, China (Shanghai as well as Beijing) & Philippines (Cebu City) and presently with its expansion, even reaching continents Europe, Middle-East and Africa. Under its expert services, there are now advancements in the fields of information technology, medical research, engineering and sales marketing. Its fields even branched out from the basic information technology business process outsourcing into knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), legal process outsourcing (LPO), engineering process outsourcing (EPO) and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). Indeed there is a lot to expect from global outsourcing this year of 2009.

There is a lot waiting for investors to think of when in contemplation of putting up a globally outsourcing firm. Factors and benefits should be taken into account in domain of domestic variations, round the clock adjustments in office work, ethnicity customs, communication seclusions and appropriate local legal practices. Outsourcing award giving bodies count rates in management performance answering criteria in expenditures, confrontments, market place, geopolitics, human resources, information technology edge, economic significance, assets update and cultural state of affairs. Furthermore, companies should follow equation on economic conflicts to lower outlays, contrary to a prospering economy of focusing instead on improvisations.

Listing down the outsourcing factors, it should evolve in the working W's of the industry: "What, Why, When, How, Where, and Who." Also,

1. Projects should be treated as a normal functioning business (a good paradigm site on this endeavor is GetACoder)
2. Match up with top requirements for inbound services: headship control, established business education, a meaningful client-investor relationship, corporate center blueprint, marketing strategies, high quality standard office procedures, good supervision on implementation of deals and growing business needs
3. Outsource undemanding job responsibilities
4. Realize styles that would help improve the firm's performance by using outsourcing. These are products of the organizational drive in pursuit of utilizing mediocre directing expenses, value effective client assistance, mastery of disembodiment, gaining the right to use consultancy advises and adaptable workers attitude.
5. Unique system for outsourcing with its fundamental sections in marketing, implementing, managing, evaluating and succeeding.
6. Carry a business portfolio. It's a must that service providers can find here rules, manpower quota and frameworks.
7. Maintain business science. An organization should have an upward growth. Corporate theories and frameworks (ex. operational model or outsourcing benefits ladder) should be followed and assessed as the firm ages. History is a tool for progress.

Henceforth, what is there to expect from 2009 Global Outsourcing? According to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), there are top 5 conjectures to be watched out for this annum.

1. Greater home based opportunities await aspirants this year. On its developments, jobs are more highly specialized, with a booming industry in the likes of fields on finance, engineering, sales, marketing, information technology and medicine.
2. Outsourcing conflicts will be on issues of facing higher risk for lower labor costs, cut-off rates on technical needs and merging companies. Contracts will be shorter even for top service level demands.
3. Certified Outsourcing Professional™ (COP) will pave the way for the connoisseur human resources.
4. Empirical corporations are still the number 1 markers in the outsourcing industry.
5. Responsible acts for outsourcing are the focus of its premises. In order to put up organizations that are solutions to the current employment loss crisis and as well as environmentally conscious office milieu.

The industry should be thankful for the cogent contributions of global outsourcing in the current depressing métier downturn. Hanging on to the continuous birth of undersized and still virtuoso freelancing companies as GetACoder seems to be the fashion these days. Over the year 2009, outsourcing movement will have a positive involvement in the economy. Learned approaches are patterned after the domestic locations, with focus on profitable commonsensical assets and projections on a business performance. In recovery from the economic divergences, outsourced employees are anticipated to make things easier, with obligations on faster gain of funds. Another concern for outsourcing organizations is flexibility to acclimatize on the ebb and flow of country exchange rates. Additional statistical exertions are needed for business forecasts, which expand the operational expenses. To do this, the firm is recommended to apply short term employments (occasionally) and venture on several other countries with low labor charges. Once these economic divergences are stagnant or resolved, this would cause the global outsourcing market to be extra emulous as recovery would mean reducing rate costs and downgrading the popularity of this field, but still firms would follow a steady growth phase. They will carry a healthier business framework, with office affiliation relationships that are permanent and bear results of superior outcomes. IN the future, it is predicted that the industry in locales and off-countries will revolve in a communal relationship. Transient on the past mayhems, these firms will maintain prospering thru outsourcing.

Unwitting knowledge of the global outsourcing trends and issues means getting lagged behind from global politics. Varied methodologies and freelancing designs have been a web of new outsourcing births in the international market scene. What's more, outsourcing organizations are achieving and adding insights from its history. Therefore, it is foreseen that the prolonged shifting of the industry dependents, international automation, modernized contents and outsourcing as an economic solution is a bridge to an economic transformation erstwhile from the basic outsourcing skills to complexity such as credentials, specific knowledge and positive features needed by your human resources. Global Outsourcing in 2009

IT Outsources Turn Green

The word outsourcing is often heard in the world of business today. It is something which has affected the business of almost every nature and every nation. Outsourcing is occurring in almost every country of this world to some extent. There are some leader countries in this field of outsourcing such as India and China. Before moving towards the topic of this article let us first understand what outsourcing is.

What is Outsourcing?
When discussed in simple words outsourcing is simply "a formal agreement with a third party to perform a service for an organization". A more comprehensive definition for outsourcing would be that outsourcing is the concept of taking internal company functions and paying an outside firm to handle them. It is basically done for the following major reasons:

• To save money in terms of lowering costs
• To improve quality
• To free company resources for other activities such as focusing more on competencies

The concept of outsourcing began with the data-processing industry and today it has spread to vase areas which comprise of tele-messaging and call centers. It would not all be wrong to say that outsourcing is the surge of the next generations. Another name used for outsourcing is off shoring which has the same meaning as outsourcing.
Technically speaking, outsourcing is not merely the contract with a third party to perform a service for an organization, but it also involves transferring a significant amount of management control and decision-making to the external supplier. The process of outsourcing is very much formal like other business processes and it always includes a considerable degree of two-way information exchange, coordination, and trust.

The concept of outsourcing gained popularity in the mid 1990s since then the trend of outsourcing has increased to a great extent. The reason for this increase in the popularity of the concept of outsourcing was the rapid growth in the number of high-tech companies in the early 1990s that were often not vast or large enough to incorporate and run large customer service departments of their own.

Different Techniques of Outsourcing
The concept of outsourcing was adopted by different organizations in different methods such as in some cases the companies who desired to outsource their customer service:

• Hired technical writers in order to write simplified usage instructions of their products

• Index the key points of information

• Contracted with temporary employment agencies to search for, train and hire generally low-skilled workers to answer their telephone technical support and customer service calls.

The most wide spread method of outsourcing being adopted throughout the world is of call centers. The people employed at the call centers answered the query calls of the customers, where the information needed to assist the calling customer was indexed in a computer system. In most cases the agents were not liable to tell the customers that they were not directly associated with the original manufacturer.

Outsourcing IT

Outsourcing IT is defined as using outside vendors to create, maintain, or reengineer IT architectures and systems. The methods of outsourcing that have been discussed earlier in this article are those which have now become old, one of the latest one is outsourcing IT. The process of outsourcing IT involves the effective management and operation of information technology assets of corporations from a remote location. To explain this concept, consider the example of the management of a computer network of a large corporation which includes outage monitoring, alarms monitoring, remote monitoring of data centers, etc. The nature of these operations is complex and requires a real-time support when needed. Hence it can be assumed that such processes cannot be easily outsourced to places where there is a big difference in the time zones. Such tasks are outsourced to comparable time zone locations, which are competitive.

Outsourcing IT- Is it the best option for your organization?

From all the facts discussed above we can gather that outsourcing IT is beneficial for organizations in many ways out such as:

• Lower costs, which might be due to economies of scale or lower labor rates
• Variable capacity
• The ability to focus on core competencies by ridding yourself of peripheral ones
• Lack of in-house resources
• Getting work done more efficiently or effectively
• Increased flexibility to meet changing business and commercial conditions
• Tighter control of budget through predictable costs
• Lower ongoing investment in internal infrastructure
• Access to innovation and thought leadership
• Possible cash influx resulting from transfer of assets to the new provider (The ABC's Of Outsourcing)

All of these facts contribute largely to the efficient working of an organization.
Now the question stand that is outsourcing IT the best option for your organization?
To decide on the answer for this question, the organization who desires to outsource its IT must consider the following aspects first:

• Does the organization posses the internal resources to run existing mission-critical systems efficiently?

If the answer to this question is no, then outsourcing IT would be a good step for the organization. As the organization does not have the internal resources that are required to manage its information systems, outsourcing IT would have a positive impact on the efficient running and operation of these systems.

• Is the organization as a whole ready to consider high degrees of organizational and cultural change, in terms of managing its IT operations?

Only when the answer to this question is yes, outsourcing IT would prove to be beneficial for the organization as the people working in the organization would readily adapt to the changes occurring as a result of the IT being outsourced to a third party and work according to the changes

• Does the organization continually need to develop new business and technical interfaces for its day-to-day operations? If yes, is it really more cost-efficient to deploy internal staff to execute these tasks?

When these questions are discussed, it has been observed that if the organization requires dynamic changes in its business and technical interfaces continually, it is better to outsource its IT in order to manage these dynamic changes

• Based on needs and budget, to what extent will the organization's IT functions be outsourced? (Lam, Outsourcing IT - Is it the Best Option for your Organization)

The organization also needs to decide on the budget and need of its IT functions to be outsourced, it may not be necessary to outsource all of the IT tasks, some minor ones could be performed by the organization itself.
The process of outsourcing IT is not as simple as outsourcing of customer services or other such tasks. It is a complex decision. The decision should be based on a solid understanding of departmental performance. It can be said without doubt that outsourcing IT is the best option for your organization if it lowers costs and increases the efficiency of the IT systems of the organization, such that its productivity increases. It has been found be studies that through the process of outsourcing IT organizations become able enough to formulate competitive strategies that will have a positive impact on their financial positions in the ever competitive global marketplace.
The company which desires to outsource IT must also realize the fact that the total amount of an outsourcing contract is not the exact representation of the money and other resources that the company would be required to spend while it outsource IT functions to a third party.

The Best Places in the World to Outsource IT for organizations

As it has been observed by considering the outsourcing trends in this era, India seems to be leading the outsourcing industry but when we talk specifically in terms of outsourcing IT, United States is the best place, according to A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index 2005. This index also identified Singapore as the Best IT services business environment. India and China also dominate over the IT services in the Asian region to less extent. Other attractive destinations for outsourcing IT are Central and Eastern Europe but the costs are higher there (The ABC's of Outsourcing).

India is Becoming an Outsourcing Hub in it Industry

Outsourcing Hub - Today India has become a hot destination for Provide a Outsourcing Services in IT companies across the World

India employs about 350,000 people in the outsourcing industry and adds 150,000 new jobs each year. But filling those vacancies is proving to be a nightmare. At this moment, the industry needs to hire around 9,000 people but can't find them.The crisis is set to worsen. The industry faces a shortfall of half a million workers in a few years' time, according to a study this month by McKinsey & Company and the Indian IT body Nasscom.

India offers one of the largest reserves of inexpensive, English speaking, scientific, technical, and customer service talent. The reason for this is that India has a pool of technically qualified graduates and postgraduates passing out every year from Indian universities that can deliver services matching international standards. India is a hub of technical support service. These back office hubs get hundreds of calls every night from around the world containing various queries. India has expertise not only in BPO or ITES but now one more area that making India a hot destination for outsourcing and that is KPO i.e. Knowledge Process Outsourcing. The super success of Indian BPO has resulted in the birth of KPO. KPO has now taken the lead in the outsourcing business.

In India Many U.S. and international companies maintain that outsourcing business processes such as customer service call centers, administrative and accounting processes to low-cost and low-wage countries like India helps to keep down their own cost of doing business.

Outsourcing is necessary to beat the competition

Outsourcing has risen up in recent times due to increasing cost of production, labor cost, taxes and other many direct or indirect expenses. Since the economies of other developing countries are improving particularly that of Asian countries, European and U.S. companies are now looking for outsourcing their jobs to these nations to cut the costs.

Considering the cut-throat competition in almost all the businesses, it has now become necessary for established companies to outsource their time-consuming and labor intensive jobs to others so that they can concentrate more on areas of their core competencies. This way companies would consider more on marketing, expansion, takeovers and mergers.

However, finding the right one for outsourcing is also very important. Outsourcing companies should have well-qualified staff, carry great experience in handling overseas projects with minimal supervision and must deliver on time. Above all, such outsourcing companies should also be very cost-effective.

By outsourcing, companies should be able to rely on the services provided by outsourcing companies. Any imbalance in rising costs of outsourcing service providers will affect heavily on the organizations. Price factor should be static for long period and organizations lending outsourcing jobs should not foresee any immediate turmoil in agreed pricing. If these are taken care of then companies will be more competitive in their industries.

An organization will only be successful if it is very competitive and to be competitive, it must be able to cut its costs. Organization must try to cut costs to remain profitable. While outsourcing the job, any organization must do the thorough inquiry about the outsourcing company.

Following major points should be checked for outsourcing company.

• Infrastructure of the outsourcing company.
• Quality of workforce, its qualification and experience for the job.
• Whether outsourcing company has bagged any reputed quality certificate such as ISO 9000
• Capability of keeping trade secrets.
• Past records for successfully handling projects

If organization finds any such outsourcing which produces at very competitive costs, it will remain in industry to beat its competition.