Offshoring is changing the focus of IT

Globalisation has created a network society, where tasks can be moved to individuals with the correct skills and those with in-demand expertise find it easier to move around the world.

Offshoring is one element of the network society. It is often an innovative way of delivering technology, blending services from multiple countries to ensure processes are delivered in a high-quality fashion.

Yet the possibility of delivering IT services from anywhere in this ever-flatter world has caused many to fear the end of the UK technology industry, as technical jobs are shipped to the experts in Bangalore.

The Office of National Statistics would beg to differ, with recent research indicating that the UK is not only a net exporter of IT-enabled services, but that employment growth over the past four years in relevant IT occupations has been 8.8 per cent, compared with an overall UK employment growth of 3.2 per cent.

So while an impending doomsday scenario for the UK IT industry might be a fallacy, there is a need to acknowledge the globalisation of IT services. The UK has to build on its existing IT sector – and countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China will continue to come to the fore.

Elizabeth Sparrow, chairwoman of the BCS working party on offshoring, insists that the UK is up to the challenge.

‘The UK’s IT profession can offer value-added skills and expertise, and has the potential not only to face up to the challenges of globalisation but also to exploit the new opportunities that are opened up,’ she says.

Despite its Indian heritage, HCL Technologies employs nearly 3,000 people in the UK, allowing a privileged perspective on the different skills required both in the UK and India.

HCL corporate vice president Rajeev Sawhney says that technology professionals in the UK can work with their counterparts in India by strengthening business-facing skills.

‘IT staff with business skills have been highly sought after by employers for some time,’ he says.

‘The BCS has stated that global sourcing will be a competitive differentiator for firms, so in these two contexts it is the interpersonal and business skills that will define the future leaders of UK IT teams. Professional standards in these two areas are increasingly important to employers as they look for the very best.’

Richard Sykes, chairman of the outsourcing group at IT trade body Intellect, believes UK technology professionals should remind themselves of what they are employed to do – solve business problems, not just cut code.

‘Contrary to the IT industry’s long-established shorthand, IT does not drive – technology enables, and people drive,’ he says.

‘At the core of any service or capability – sourced externally or internally – are people, their competencies, their skills and their experience. Capturing their motivation and commitment to delivering performance objectives must be made integral to sourcing management.’

Many suppliers, formerly considered to be offshore, have reinvented themselves as global providers, meaning they now need skilled resource in many locations – including the UK.

A S Lakshminarayanan, UK country manager of the largest Indian IT supplier Tata Consultancy Services, says he believes that the best way to deliver services is through the use of a global network delivery model.

‘This means you don’t transfer every possible service to India, you take time to work with your clients to analyse how best to deliver services to them, wherever they are located,’ he says.

‘TCS recently created our Diligenta subsidiary, offering insurance services from Peterborough. We also have expertise in delivery centres distributed globally across South America, Europe, China and India.’

But George Bell, MBA course director at London South Bank University, believes the UK needs to challenge wisdom in the light of competition from global IT firms. ‘The skills of self-management or working in isolation – what I call managing distance – will become important,’ he says.

‘This means we need to reconsider the traditional role of training and focus more on learning how to learn. If there is less need for face-to-face contact and a shift to more virtual working environments, then we need to rethink the classical theories of motivation, team roles, and cross-cultural working to accommodate appropriate behaviour for new outsourced working patterns.’

The new global environment presents a test for anyone working in IT. The flat world, first described by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, portrays a world in which it is not nations or companies that need to compete internationally, but individuals challenging for work based on their skills.

The National Outsourcing Association is working to analyse how professional standards in outsourcing, and a better understanding of corporate partnerships, could help UK IT employees perform better in a fast-changing environment.

When the BCS commenced its research into offshoring, some members criticised the society, claiming it should be protecting jobs, not engaging with the offshore community.

Elizabeth Sparrow says the research has not undermined UK IT but has, instead, helped the industry develop a genuine understanding of how offshoring affects the UK. ‘It’s about helping the UK’s IT profession face the future with confidence and pride,’ she says.

Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is the author of Outsourcing to India: The Offshore Advantage (Springer), board member of the National Outsourcing Association and a member of the BCS working party on offshoring.

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