Home > Offshore outsourcing

The general criteria for a job to be offshore-able are:

• The job does not require direct customer interaction;
• the job can be telework;
• The work has a high information content;
• The work is easy to set up;
• There is a high wage difference between the original and offshore countries;
• The work is repeatable.

The driving factor behind this development has been the need to cut costs during the recession following the events of September 11, 2001, while the enabling factor has been the global electronic network that allows digital data to be accessed and shipped instantly, from and to anywhere in the world.

Some of the major countries that provide such services are India (Programming and IT), Russia (Programming and R&D), the Philippines (Data Entry and Customer Support), China (Programming), and many others.

The advent of the Internet has enabled individuals and small businesses to contract freelancers from all over the world to get projects done at a minimum cost. This trend runs in parallel with the tendency towards big corporations' outsourcing, and may in the future serve to strengthen small business' capacity to compete with their bigger competitors capable of setting up offshore locations or of arriving at major contracts with offshore companies. See Freelancing on the Internet.

There are different views on the impact on society, which reflects the attitude of ProtectionismProtectionism is the economic policy of promoting favored domestic industries through the use of high tariffs and other regulations to discourage imports. Historical variants of this policy have included mercantilism, a trade policy aimed at maximizing cu versus Free Trade. Some see it as a potential threat to the domestic job market and ask for government protective measures, while others (and not just corporations) see it as an opportunity.

1 See also

• outsourcingOutsourcing is the delegation of tasks or jobs from internal production to an external entity (such as a subcontractor). Most recently, it has come to mean the elimination of native staff to staff overseas, where salaries are markedly lower. This is despi
• offshoring
• nearshoringNearshoring is a form of Outsourcing in which business processes are relocated to cheaper, still, geographically closer locations. Nearshoring can also be contrasted with Offshoring or OffshoreOutsourcing, which implies relocation of business processes to
• list of international trade topicsInternational trade an overview Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Autarky Balance of trade barter Bimetallism Bretton Woods system Cash crop Comparative advantage Continental trading bloc Cost, insurance and freight Curren
• freelancing on the Internet