Domestic lack of talent leads US firms to offshore

Washington, Aug 4: Despite Obama's 'No to Bangalore and Yes to Buffalo' statement that came months ago, a new study has found that many companies continue to offshore only very few plan to bring back the jobs to America.

According to the fifth annual report on offshoring trends, the US companies that offshore to cut costs have doubled over the period of three years.

The report that was published by Duke University in collaboration with the Conference Board says, "Sixty percent of companies that had already offshored say they have aggressive plans to expand existing activities, and very few plan to relocate activities back to the United States."

There is a growth in the globalization of innovation defined as engineering, research and development (R&D), R&D support functions, product design, and software development, the report said.

"Speed to market and the domestic shortage of science and engineering talent are two key drivers for offshoring projects," the conference board said on Monday, Aug 3.

While in 2004 offshoring concentrated on information technology and help desk support; in 2007-08 it was the financial services industries that showed interest in offshoring.

Now, the offshoring is based on the need for talent in engineering, software development, marketing and sales and procurement.

OneIndia News