Surprising Shift in Outsourcing Trend New Book Predicts US to be Top Offshoring Destination



May 10, 2005 -- According to the authors of The Black Book of Outsourcing: How to Manage the Changes, Challenges and Opportunities, Douglas Brown & Scott Wilson, predict the top five outsourcing destinations for Outsourcing will be, in order:

1. China
2. India
3. USA
4. Russia/Eastern Europe, and
5. Brazil.

Evidence of this outsourcing evolution is said to be taking first form in the movement termed nearshoring.

"Offshoring undoubtedly offers significant financial benefits for companies across a wide range of fields and sizes. Undertaking such a venture, however, requires a cost benefit analysis that includes downsides such as political instability, language and cultural barriers, and time zone differences", said author Scott Wilson, at an outsourcing conference last week in New York.

While over 75% of US companies currently outsourcing have decided that the potential benefits outweigh these costs, many potential outsourcers would be willing to sacrifice some cost savings for significantly limiting their risk. This is the principle behind nearshoring, a form of sending operations offsite to nations closer (both culturally and geographically) to the source nation.

"Nations such as Canada, Mexico, and the countries of South America are benefiting greatly from the expansion of this modifying practice trend," said Wilson, "Next, we can expect America to become a super-contender in the outsourcing provider ranks."

Secondly, also contributing to the prediction is a leveling outsourcing playing field. The costs of supplying services are anticipated to eventually level off.

"The price of fuel, professional personnel shortages, customer dissatisfaction and demands, and upward creeping costs of labor are major factors will that propel and disrupt the balance. Opportunistic US entrepreneurs and workers can reap the benefits by preparing for the developments."

Coupled with the recent Garter research that offshoring will affect thirty percent of current US jobs by 2015 as they are now structured, Brown & Wilson advise that individuals in the technology, finance, human resources and business processing professions begin to re-tool their skill base to include the fundamentals of outsourcing processes.

"Those hindered in anti-outsourcing activities, will likely be too caught up with proving the observation wrong, and miss the boat," concluded Wilson.

About the Black Book of Outsourcing
Being published by John Wiley & Sons, The Black Book of Outsourcing will be available in US everywhere books are sold on May 2, 2005. Distributing first in English around the world, a Russian translation will be produced later this year as well. The Black Book of Outsourcing has received considerable pre-publication anticipation by the three audiences it aims to serve: (1) Managers and Executives managing outsourcing initiatives (2) Job Seekers looking for a new career path in the outsourcing industries, particularly those US techies displaced by job outsourcing, and (3) entrepreneurs thinking ahead toward the opportunities predicted to return to the US.

Excerpts and Information: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471718890.html





Surprising Shift in Outsourcing Trend New Book Predicts US to be Top Offshoring Destination