Indians rule outsourcing

In a clear indication that India dominates outsourcing the world over, a Forbes magazine survey says that five of the seven billionaires whose primary source of wealth is outsourcing are Indians, reports The Economic Times.

Three of the five, NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, are from Infosys Technologies. The others are Azim Premji of Wipro and Shiv Nadar of HCL Technologies.

Forbes notes that all five made their billions by providing global software and IT services. In contrast, the other two outsourcing billionaires, Terry Gou and Barry Lam, both of Taiwan, run companies specialising in contract manufacturing in the electronics sector.

A digital advertising contract between India's second largest IT services provider, Infosys Technologies, and a major American newspaper group is threatening to become a rallying point for the US anti-outsourcing brigade to regroup and renew attacks on the outsourcing of management information systems and key operations-related work to India, says Business Standard.

Infosys Technologies, according to sources, signed an advertising outsourcing deal with Missouri-based Kansas City Star sometime last month.

The daily will outsource advertising production work for its new media/digital business to Bangalore.

According to the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), 17 areas in the Philippines now have investors from the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, says Inquirer.net.

CICT has identified a total of 22 areas in its drive to establish so-called ICT hubs ideal for BPO investors, according to Commissioner Monchito Ibrahim.

Ibrahim cited the growing awareness about BPO in cities outside of the Metro Manila. He also noted increased enrolment in ICT-related courses in these areas.