Offshoring to the U.S.

If you examine the top 50 outsourcing contracts (by value) inked over the last decade, you'll find that an overwhelming majority of them involve U.S. service providers. A broad generalization is that as we move along an increasing continuum of strategic value of outsourcing (reduction of costs for transaction intensive business processes on one end and business transformation on the other), we find ourselves making the journey across the Atlantic from India to the U.S.

Interestingly, while much interest and discussion in the offshoring space has focused on the transactional end of the spectrum, little is known about strategic offshoring that happens to the U.S. So much so that the conceptualization and imagery of offshoring has shifted from its inclusive characterization of inter-country outsourcing to be limited to outsourcing to low cost destinations or emerging markets such as India and China.

Further, while a large percent of the client firms involved in the top 50 contracts are from Western Europe and Japan, a few firms outsourcing their business processes are also India-based. More evidence that globalization, global diffusion of competencies and development are good for the U.S. And that we're still traversing the circle.