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| ACTIVITIES |
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As for outsourcing in general,
for offshore outsourcing there is not yet a commonly accepted "best
practice" to mark the boundaries between the activities to be
"preserved" locally ("in house" or at a local
supplier') and the activities to be carried out in an emerging country.
This said, the activities of offshore outsourcing may be grouped in two broad categories: "consolidated" and "innovative". The "consolidated" activities are those of the administrative backoffice type (document processing, data entry, accounting and human resource data management, medical transcriptions, …). In those activities the client-provider relationship is well established, the procedures tested, the suppliers stable and the results documented. These activities are not too sophisticated and starting a new facility does not require a big investment. These activities are growing fast, and the growth driver is the demand from developed countries, i.e. new companies following the steps of the early adopters. The "innovative" activities on the other hand are often for frontoffice tasks (call centers, telemarketing, hotlines, electronic catalogues, remote education, …) or for services of higher technical content (engineering services, animation, remote management of infrastructures, search on data bases). Such activities are heterogeneous, often niched, and not prone to standard solutions; the investment required for a new facility is usually considerable. Also these activities are growing fast, and growth for them is mostly supply-driven. The "consolidated" activities are of interest mostly for service companies (banks, insurance, utilities, retail, health industry, government). The "innovative" activities are transversal to many industries of both services and manufacturing; they also show a certain penetration in small-and-medium enterprises and in the non-English-speaking (especially Northern European and Japanese) markets. As far as per-capita revenue is concerned, the "consolidated" activities have a higher ratio (though the datum may be partly due to fiscal reasons, since many of those services are captive). However, the "innovative's" have a better growth dynamic. |
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