Asian outsourcing may be up against near-shoring
Even as a recent survey indicated that Asia would still get its share in the outsourcing business from the US and Europe in 2008, solution providers are noticing interest in the region's outsourcing is waning.
Solution providers have noticed that interest in Asian outsourcing—notably in India, has waned, according to Craig Zarley of ChannelWeb Network. Language is being pointed to as one of the major issues, among many others, in Zarley’s top seven reasons why there is decline in interest of going to Asian countries.
Ten Asian countries emerged in the list of 30 global destinations for offshore IT services, according to a CIO news report that cited a recent Gartner survey, including Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
The survey, according to the CIO report, also listed seven in the Americas and 15 in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The report said the survey used ten criteria, including language, infrastructure, and cultural compatibility, among others. China, according to the report, scored poorly in the language criterion. India, the CIO report said, and Singapore demonstrated strong government support of IT services.
Ten criteria were used in the survey, including language, government support, labor pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political and economic environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property security and privacy.
“When working on IT or any project, clear-cut communications are vital to success. Cultural differences in the way people speak make it difficult for people to understand each other,” Zarley said.
“They speak English. We speak English. [But] our accents are as difficult for the Asians to sometimes understand as theirs are for us,” Zarly noted.
Near-shoring is gaining traction, Zarly said, “for the simple reason that their time zones are similar, language is similar enough to avoid miscommunication.” Zarly also pointed to airfare, time difference and cultural barriers as reasons for the shift.
In near-shoring, Zarly said, the risk of miscommunication is low. Referring to Dallas-based solution provider CompuCom that is leveraging its Canadian operations as outsourcing centers for the U.S, he said, “Canada is next door. Our English is close enough to each other’s to avoid most miscommunication, unless you like cookies with your coffee instead of biscuits.”
