Much to the chagrin of CNN’s Lou Dobbs and the ever-increasing number of Americans embracing economic isolationism, outsourcing– whether it’s customer service call centers, filming motion pictures or implementing an ERP system for a global investment firm– is only going to increase in the years to come.
For the IT folks, the word outsourcing has become synonymous with India where companies like Wipro and Infosys have grown by leaps and bounds in the past five years.
According to Gartner analyst Kurt Potter, the Indian outsourcing firms made their bones by mastering the art of the one-off project, leaving the large-scale datacenter, applications and network monitoring and maintenance gigs to the large American, European and Japanese vendors.
But that’s all starting to change. The India-based companies are moving up the value chain, attracting the people and pedigree to start taking on the IBMs, Accentures and HPs of the world for these big-dollar, multi-year contracts.
Meanwhile, upstarts around the globe are making some noise of their own.
Stefanini IT Services, based in Brazil, is quickly becoming the IBM of South America. In March, the Brown & Wilson Group ranked it No. 9 on its global list of the top end-to-end global outsourcing vendors. Potter also mentioned Hildebrando Services in Mexico and Russia’s Auriga as vendors worth keeping an eye on as companies look for outsourcing providers from all geographies.