Abstract

The concept of outsourcing is a central narrative employed by Friedman (2005) to underscore the fact that globalization is principally driven by the Internet which enables a level playing field for various economic activities. From an information management perspective, the pervasive adoption of Information Technology (IT) with close to 80% of IT services outsourced in one way or the other (Lacity & Willcocks, 2001), has made the multi-billion dollar Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) industry become important not only to individual organizations, but to governments as well (Cullen, Seddon & Willcocks, 2005). The ITO market is thus continuing to mature, with an increasing number of suppliers of outsourced service providers and advancements in IT that are enabling the management, implementation and operations in IT-enabled services and relocation of firm value chains to other countries (Cullen et al, 2005; Hutzchenreuter, Lewin and Dresel, 2011).The global potential for offshoring remains huge, with estimates of the outsourcing market standing at $77 billion per year, with U.S. companies accounting for about $44 billion (Tucci, 2007). The concept of offshoring elevates the importance of country destinations where IT services are sent to or outsourced. India has been the leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services provider for a number of years, but is being threatened by a myriad of challenges. Key among these challenges is the labor crunch with rising wages and costs, which are converging towards the client levels of organizations that the BPO firms serve (Jorek, Gott & Battat, 2009). The other two top countries (China & Malaysia) in the 2009 and 2011 Global Services Location Index (GSLI) also face similar changes as India (Jorek, Gott & Battat, 2009; Kearney, 2011). Other destinations enumerated in the report as emerging offshore outsourcing destinations include African countries such as Ghana, Mauritius, Egypt and Senegal.

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