Out Of India: British Firm Shifts 250 Jobs Back Home

[Mntsnow]

Bucking the trend of moving jobs to developing countries, a British mail-order company is shifting work back home from a call center in Bangalore, potentially costing the Indian firm 250 jobs.
A spokeswoman for the Indian firm, ICICI Onesource, refused to say whether Britain's Shop Direct had given any reason for canceling the outsourcing contract, which began in March 2002. The spokeswoman said that even as Shop Direct canceled the contract, it sent a certificate saying the work had been "extremely good."

Read more (http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17501857)

[Axel]

Very interesting -

The one thing that worries me most about the outsourcing going to India is as follows -

Lets put a LOT of our IT work which we depend heavily upon in our service oriented economy into the country MOST likely to be hit with a nuclear weapon by one of it's neighbors in our lifetimes..... (Pakistan into India) - research references to cruise missile testing of both India and Pakistan and Kashmiri region conflict

As the political climate in Pakistan changes with their coming elections and the US meddling further along the border in it's hunt for Al Quaeda which will de-stabalize the semi-friendly government there - let's move thousands of electronically linked jobs into the region to save a little money.

Have any of these people ever heard of something called a risk assessment?

How about information security?

Not to mention homeland defense - as we send millions of sets of personal information in the form of customer data through India which hasn't exactly been known for it's high security and ethics in the past. You think things are difficult to secure and control in a region with one or two or three religions - try hundreds of different faiths many with extremely different goals and values from the traditional Judao-Christian ethics we enjoy.....

Do you think putting personal information in the hands of people who make 10 to 50% of the wages someone in our own countries would make is immune from the cash available to some of these terrorist organizations? I imagine it would add a lot of coloring to a manufactured identity if they had a lot of back ground information to insert as harvested from the customer data passing through central India's call centers.

[BBA]

I think we should not have tech support farmed out as well.

If you look at the companies doing it...they all have CEO's and CIO's making millions each year while they pay the cheapest labor they can and not give as many jobs to the communities they actually live in.

Yea....it's big business. Glad at least one company is going back in house.

[fluxy]

Originally posted by Axel
Lets put a LOT of our IT work which we depend heavily upon in our service oriented economy into the country MOST likely to be hit with a nuclear weapon by one of it's neighbors "MOST likely", as used here, is a direct play on statistics. It does NOT and should not be construed as certainty. Indian and Pakistani scientists and generals are not crazier than their American counterparts... and the Americans, while they have conjured up thoughts of nuclear weapons use recently, have been reserved so far. Actually, the U.S. have been using atomic weapons for well over a decade - but thats another discussion.

As the political climate in Pakistan changes... let's move thousands of electronically linked jobs into the region to save a little money. How would that affect data centers in India? Are Pakistani and Indian data or other networks inextricably linked? Will Pakistani hackers attack outsourced call centers in India?

Have any of these people ever heard of something called a risk assessment?
How about information security? In case they havent, feel free to sound the alarm. I happen to think that they have weighed things out and have not only considered the financial benefits. If they haven't then 'stupid' would be very far from a beginning in describing them.

Not to mention homeland defense - as we send millions of sets of personal information in the form of customer data through India which hasn't exactly been known for it's high security and ethics in the past.

Alot of said 'consumer data' is already in the public domain in the U.S. and is traded daily. Furthermore, it is doubtful that those American or British corporations possess or have placed sensitive info, or info vital to their national security, in the hands of Indian companies. I doubt there's cause for major concern there.

As far as poor Indian security and ethics in the past goes, the U.S. has no bright light that she can shine either. But more importantly, there's a saying in the business world to the effect that past performance is not a indicator of future results.

Do you think putting personal information in the hands of people who make 10 to 50% of the wages someone in our own countries would make is immune from the cash available to some of these terrorist organizations? It can be argued that if was less traceable, workers in the U.S. would not be immune from that cash either. Human nature? Maybe. The way of today's world? Maybe.