Bear Flag Republic Radio Weblog

It's interesting that the western response to globalization is outsourcing.  We outsource both economically (which integrates US firms and markets to low cost international production/services) and militarily (which provides high cost but a very flexible alternative/extension to US military capabilities).

Bush's $660 m plan to turn 75,000 international troops into an international peacekeeping force is reinforcement of this trend.   These troops will be, in effect, nation-state sponsored PMCs (private military companies). [John Robb's Weblog]

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Biotech companies about to fire workers and move offshore, too. Biotech was going to be the next big thing after IT moved offshore. Bye, bye, biotech. As long as countries like India and China retain poverty as a comparative advantage to keep costs low, and their populations greatly outnumber the expensive U.S., the U.S. will lose market share.

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And Both IBM and CitiGroup buy their India-based outsourcing firms. More and more big companies likely to acquire their offshore partners in order to exert more management control. There are many reports that offshored work was harder to get done, on time, at the expected quality level, in a time zone half the world away, using a third-party firm. By bringing the offshore work "in-house", all aspects of the offshore relationship can be managed more tightly. We will increasingly see acquisitions and establishment of offshore development centers that are wholly owned subsidiaries. Only a few of the really big offshore contract firms - such as Wipro, Infosys and Satyam - may survive the shake out. Those firms are big enough today to have a worldwide presence and the management structures in place to provide delivery guarantees. The smaller offshore firms - of which there are zillions - are the ones likely to suffer. We are just at the tip of a first consolidation phase that will result in dramatically fewer offshore firms. I would not be at all surprised to find that when U.S. customers choose to offshore, they end up hiring IBM or Accenture or EDS - who in turn will do most of the work offshore. [Edward Mitchell: Common Sense Technology]
comments < 7:06:10 AM        >