Outsourcing to access top talent

The US is a mature market when it comes to outsourcing. Outsourcing and off shoring is not about cost any more, it's about access to talent. The challenge for companies today is to come up with a coherent strategy that uses off shoring to get access to the best talent, wherever in the world it exists.

One of the main reasons for this is that hiring and retaining talent in the valley has become a huge problem for many companies. To make things worse, over the last 5 years there has been a 33% decrease annually in the number of computer science graduates in the US.

An indication of this is the surge of the number of companies looking to hire developers, architects and project managers. With good VC and investor confidence, the open source phenomenon making technology available at lower costs and a strong economy, startups and entrepreneurship could hit a feverish pitch in the next couple of years.

All of this spells an opportunity for a company that can demonstrate a value proposition in the area of software development services.

India currently is the leader. How do the other countries stack up in comparison?

Well China is India's biggest competitor and will be a major force in the next 5 to 10 years. With the government setting its sights on improving english education right from primary school levels (which today I believe is the biggest stumbling block for China), China will be in a position to compete for a major chuck of the software services market. For now though, with only 3-4 companies with 500+ people, it really can't compete with the Indian powerhouses.

You also have Russia, Brazil and eastern European countries such as Ukraine which I have seen coming up as a good off shoring destination. Russia is still bogged down by its rules and regulations, and Brazil by its language (Portuguese being the main language currently). Hence India remains the clear leader and will be challenged by China in the coming years.

So coming back to my point which is that there is a clear opportunity in the outsourced software development space with companies looking at outsourcing today as a way to access the best talent..and the challenge is to understand the customer needs and build a value proposition around that.

If any of you guys are interested on this topic, just leave a comment and I can share how that value proposition can be built.