Aussies should embrace global outsourcing

The Australian ICT industry and State and Federal governments have been advised to take advantage of the fresh potential of knowledge-based global outsourcing or miss out on billions of dollars of offshoring business.

According to Swamy & Associates, independent offshoring advisors and managers, commissioned by The Australian Computer Society, high-end analytics work - such as Knowledge Process Outsourcing, is in growing demand in the US, European and Japanese markets, and if successful, Australia's "onshoring" efforts could capture between 150,000 to 200,000 highly qualified full-time workers.

Edward Mandla, the ACS president, said that the research and policy framework for onshoring is a natural next step to the ACS Offshoring Policy released last year. "Offshore-outsourcing of processes has so far been characterised by considerable community anxiety and apprehension within Australia.

"Yet the emerging reality is that Australia can look at the global trend towards offshoring as an opportunity rather than a threat. Global offshoring has moved to the next level and we need the support of government and industry to capture the opportunities.

"Phase one was basic administrative and processing tasks. Phase two is knowledge-based analytics. As a medium cost destination, Australia is ideally suited to take on knowledge-based, ICT-enabled analytics services."

Mandla added that despite this opportunity, Australia is not seen as a top-of-mind destination, therefore there is a tangible need for a national agency to represent the interest of government and industry to develop a long-term strategy for the Australian ICT sector, to facilitate international partnerships and promote the benefits of onshoring work to Australia.

"The current industry landscape in Australia consists of more than fifteen industry association giving mixed messages, and with an over reliance on volunteers and a lack of funds to develop programmes. There is no 10 to 15 year plan and there are competing state and federal interests.

"The result is there's no appropriate government policy which addresses these opportunities, and it appears no true willingness to have Australia positioned as a global technology player."

The ACS Onshoring policy believes that Australia's workforce is between 20 and 40 percent more affordable than the US, UK, Japan and major European centres and highlights Australia's other key onshore advantages:

A sophisticated financial services sector; a highly skilled and productive workforce; excellent infrastructure, including strong Business Continuity Planning processes; strong multi-lingual skills across both European and Asian languages; respect for intellectual property; a stable political and economic environment and a transparent legal and governance systems.