Local companies could have a large chunk of the outsourcing pie, if they focused on a niche market.
This is according to Dr Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman and CEO of Indian technology business Zensar Technologies. He says India's real success in the industry lies in a little bit of luck, and focused concentration on training talented engineers and IT professionals.
Unlike many organisations globally, Zensar's results this year have shown an increase. It presented revenue growth of 12% and doubled its profit this year.
Natarajan says outsourced IT has become a hot commodity globally, and the company has tailored products that it says will provide savings to those firms caught in the recession.
Zensar has a large local operation, and Natarajan says South African outsourcers could take the global outsourcing market head on.
The company says all SA lacks now is a focused market and significant skills development.
The first set of students has started training locally and in December they will head off to India to be integrated into the business to learn the ropes. According to Natarajan, the students will work on South African projects, learning how a global IT company operates.
Once they have completed their training internationally, they will be given the opportunity to intern at the local companies and possibly be hired into Zensar later.
Zensar has begun localising staff in all its operations and says its vision is to have South Africans in the South African business, only to be managed by its own top-level project managers. The company already employs 220 people in the country.
Natarajan says SA will have a dramatic boost once the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup has come and gone. He says the infrastructure now being developed for the sports spectacular can be snapped up by business once it's done.
He says it will provide local companies with much-needed technology and skills that would otherwise not have been developed.
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