India cashing in

Belt-tightening by global technology giants, a fallout of US economic slowdown, is likely to reinforce India as the most preferred offshoring destination, says The Economic Times.

Top technology firms are actively moving part of their workforce from the US, UK and European markets to lower-cost destinations. They cite availability of local talent, better delivery and a conducive environment as key offshoring reasons.

Networking and telecoms software major Nortel recently decided to move almost 1 000 jobs from the US and the UK to low-cost, high-growth destinations like India, China and Mexico.

Lloyds TSB has announced another 450 IT jobs are to go in the UK as it continues to export more of its key technology-based operations to India, says ITPro.

This round of cuts, starting in June and lasting 12 months, involves up to 250 permanent IT roles and 200 contractors from the bank's technical delivery division, responsible for software development and design.

"Information technology is the backbone of our business and by combining the diverse skills of our staff with those of other companies, we can provide the best possible service to our customers," the bank said in a statement.

According to Gartner, UK IT managers must develop a set of standards that foreign IT workers must adhere to when taking on offshored work if they are to enforce acceptable conduct, says ComputerWeekly.com.

Partha Iyengar, analyst at Gartner, said IT managers needed to bridge cultural gaps in what was acceptable conduct for foreign IT workers, such as not casually disclosing private data.

Iyengar cited a problem where one US company offshored its payroll system to India, where it is a cultural practice for workers to openly compare pay cheques. However, when one Indian IT worker disclosed the pay details of an American executive back to an American colleague, the IT manager came under fire for not setting employer/employee expectations.