Offshoring Secrets: A Personal Journey

By Utkarsh Rai, Guest Author, Author of “Offshoring Secrets”.

Are you really committed and passionate about making your offshore center successful?

This is the fundamental question which should be asked of the person responsible in the parent company. Most of the time the decision to open an offshore center or team is forced upon him and he has no other option but to oblige.

Many questions come to mind. Why India, why not Israel or Poland? What about China? Would it be better to seek transfer to another division to escape this conundrum?

Here is the story of a person who in the 90’s was responsible for offshoring most of his projects to the Philippines. He worked very hard and succeeded in setting up and running his offshore operation smoothly. Ironically, during the economic downturn in 2001, his own job was offshored to the Philippines.

Ofcousre, he is not the only one who suffered this experience.

But he went on to do something bold and different. He took up a job in another company which was planning to open a center in India. He passionately set up the team and started sending projects to India. He kept a skeleton team in the US. He made a clear distinction of work between India and US, so that people across geographies did not have to worry about job security.

This time, his own job was safe in the US, but he was not happy. Why? Once the operations started running smoothly, he felt that his job had become mundane, and that he was not being challenged. This, coupled with some internal differences in opinion, made him decide to resign.

This time, he took up a position in a startup, which was planning to open a center in China. Today, he is busy repeating the same process with China. His philosophy is that there are so many countries in the world where work can be offshored and therefore there is no dearth of opportunities for himself. His knowledge of the world has improved dramatically, not to mention his pay package.

Offshoring is necessary; he is the firm believer of this. However, it was necessary for him to recast his own insecurity in a positive light, converting his fear of being “offshored” to an opportunity to learn about new cultures.

This segment is a part in the series : Offshoring Secrets