Report on outsourcing
Te number of buyers satisfied with their 'offshoring' providers has fallen from 79% to 62%. In addition, the number of buyers prematurely terminating an outsourcing relationship has doubled to 51%, writes Deepak Mankar.
Once again, I'm dumbfounded. It seems that a reputed filmmaker recently agreed to having his new film 'recensored' by someone other than the Censor Board. The same 'power' unto himself who did the same thing once before to another well-known auteur. What astonishes me is, if these people didn't have the power of their conviction when they scripted and filmed their brainchildren, why didn't they abort them in the beginning? Also, when someone does you the favour of creating a character resembling you loosely or closely, just count your blessings and take a bow. As a savvy spin-doctor is alleged to have whispered to his not-so-smart client, all press is good press, even the bad one. In other words, coming in the limelight as often as you can and staying there as long as you can is the name of the fame game. More about spin doctoring: justpeople.com.
'NO' TO FREE SPEECH. China puts her foot down.
A mid-June blog post at mediacenter.blogs.com is rather livid-sounding: "To all those holier-than-thou journalists and MSM defenders who dismiss bloggers as nothing more than amateur rumour-mongers and babblers, please take note of what's happening in China today — and don't just sit there. Apply YOUR free speech: report, expose, shine the light of day on repression. And note not only the policies of control, but the engineers. In this case, they include Microsoft." It also draws attention to the state diktat to all bloggersbloggers to register with the government by the end of this month. mediacenter.blogs.com. It cites a relevant Guardian Unlimited article: Those who continue to publish under their real names on sites hosted in China will either have to avoid political subjects or just relay the Communist party's propaganda." And: "This decision will enable those in power to control online news and information much more effectively." An interesting remark in the post goes like this: "China's actions in this regard could be equated to what people have to suffer in American airports these days."
SECURITY BREACHED. Outsourcing to India under fire.
There's some disturbing news on the outsourcing front. It seems that an undercover reporter from The Sun newspaper in the UK was able to buy the details of 1,000 British bank accounts. This is being flaunted as the final proof beyond doubt that Indians can't be trusted with the responsibility that offshoring brings. "Of course this isn't the case. What it proves is that for a year's salary somebody with a criminal inclination will betray whatever data they have access to," is the generous comment of the 23 June 2005 silicon.com Leader. silicon.com. "Let's not pretend the same wouldn't be true of similar individuals in a UK call centre," it continues. "There are good and bad in all societies. The only thing which can be attributed to the specifics of this case - that it occurred in a call centre in India - is the fact a year's pay is less there than in some other parts of the world and therefore the margins are greater for the criminals buying the lists." The previous QuiteATake story on outsourcing: hindustantimes.com ('OUTSOURCING. Out with the good news.')
NOT AS GOOD AS BEFORE. Report on outsourcing.
Another bit of disheartening news for people who pin their hopes on the continuing success of offshoring! According to DiamondCluster International's annual study of IT outsourcing based on surveys and in-depth discussions with 210 senior IT executives at 'global 1000' companies and 242 senior executives at outsourcing service providers in India, the United States and other countries in late 2004 and early 2005 "the number of buyers satisfied with their 'offshoring' providers has fallen from 79 per cent to 62 per cent. In addition, the number of buyers prematurely terminating an outsourcing relationship has doubled to 51 per cent." However, Tom Weakland, DiamondCluster consultant, feels that the blame "cannot be heaped solely on the shoulders of providers. Many buyers are now several years into at least one outsourcing relationship but they still lack effective measures to gauge the success of their outsourcing initiatives, which are critical for knowing and getting what you want." Moreover, the report finds that "worries about anti-outsourcing legislation and political pressure have waned, but 88 per cent of buyers remain concerned about employee backlash." Also, there's "increased interest in sending tech work to China. Forty per cent of buyers expect to outsource some IT functions to China during the next three to five years" (8 per cent last year). silicon.com.
OUTSHORING BOOMING. US$17.2 billion earned in 2004 - 2005.
But the story so far shows offshoring is not as yet a lost cause. Citing NAASCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies), Dinesh C Sharma (CNETAsia) reports that "the export of software and from services sold to companies from outside India (what's known as offshore outsourcing), reached US$17.2bn during fiscal 2004 to 2005" - showing a "growth of 34.5 per cent over the previous year's revenue of US$12.8bn." The break-up of these earnings is as follows: "US$5.2bn was revenue from call centres and business process outsourcing services" while the "remaining US$12bn was generated by software and other services". Important highlight: "While the UK and the US remain dominant markets, Indian companies are making gains in newer geographies such as Germany, Japan and Singapore" According to NAASCOM, "the growth to both high-margin segments of the market, as well as traditional service lines in the business process outsourcing sector. … revenue from product development and R&D services was US$3bn, up from US$2.3bn the previous year." silicon.com
AHEAD OF THE TIMES. Google's two 'advanced operators'.
As I've confessed time and again, I'm not a techie. So, you'll have to carefully vet the information I now bring to your attention. I found it in Joe Balestrino's article, 'Advanced Google Operators', at Searchnewz.com. searchnewz.com. I thought that it would interest and be useful to all those who search the Internet. Joe introduces the topic by saying: "Google has a list of advanced operators popular among the SEO community. However, most web site owners are not aware of these". He elaborates on his theme: "These operators are used as part of your search, requesting certain information from the search engine:" The first of these advanced operators is the popular [ LINK: ]. If you tag it along you domain name as in 'link:mysite.com in the Google bar, it will show you who is linked to you. The other one is [ INURL: ], e.g., 'inurl:mr-seo.com Joe Balestrino' will return results for Joe Balestrino only on mr-seo.com - a great help if you are looking for a specific phrase on a site. Then, there is the [INTITLE: ] operator that will return web sites that have the requested keyword or phrase in their title tag. And, the fourth useful operator is [ CACHE: ] to show you the web page with the desired keyword word highlighted. google.com. "Some operators work on other search engines as well," Joe says.
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2005 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles athttp://www.asiaondemand.com/. Website:http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him at dmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in