191. Went for Cost, Stayed for Quality?: Moving the Back Office to India
- Author:
- Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Will the next great wave of globalization come in services? Increasingly, components of back-office services, such as payroll and order fulfillment, and some front-office services, such as customer care are being relocated from the U.S. and other developed countries to English-speaking, developing nations especially India, but also other nations such as the Phillipines. Though moving service activities offshore is not entirely new, the pace has of late quickened. The acceleration of this offshoring is intertwined, though not synonymous, with another phenomenon, namely an increasing willingness by firms to outsource what formerly were considered core activities. The importance of the fact that a substantial number of service activities might move offshore is that it was service jobs that were thought to be the future growth area for developed country economies as manufacturing relocated to lower labor cost regions offshore. This is especially important, because these services commonly known as "business processes" (BPs) are among the fastest growing job categories in the US (Goodman and Steadman 2002). Should these jobs begin to move offshore, a new tendency may be underway in the global economy that will be as important or more important than the relocation of manufacturing offshore, and might necessitate a rethinking of government policies across a wide spectrum.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, South Asia, and India