In what could be bad news for the Indian BPO sector, a growing number of Silicon Valley companies are moving offshore businesses to geographically nearer locations in an effort to cut costs and address customer-service complaints.
The trend, known as 'nearshoring', involves outsourcing white-collar jobs closer to home, such as Costa Rica, Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere, instead of half way around the world in places like India and China.
The obvious advantages of nearshore sites are their ample supply of knowledgeable and low-paid workers, language and cultural compatibility and similar time zones.
For big US tech companies, shifting jobs to closer locations can avoid the 'operational bumps' that would otherwise occur in the more distant, more popular offshoring destinations in Asia, the
San Jose Mercury News reported.
"It's important that the world knows that it's not just China and India," said Diane Burton, an associate professor of management at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
"It is truly a more global phenomena where there are skilled and talented people around the world who are ready, willing and able to do the kind of work that (represents) good jobs."
Language fluency was a big reason why some of Sun Microsystems' technical support jobs were moved from India to Nova Scotia in Canada, the paper said. Customers in the Americas who needed tech support had griped about having a difficult time understanding the English typically spoken in India.
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