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Offshore outsourcing, a
type of business process outsourcing (BPO), is the exporting of IT-related work
from developed countries to areas of the world where there is political stability,
availability of skilled people, and lower labor costs or tax savings. Outsourcing
is an arrangement in which one company provides services for another company that
could also be or usually have been provided in-house. Offshore simply means "any
country other than your own." And outsourcing simply means “executed by any company
other than your own.” The Internet and high-speed Internet connections make it possible
for outsourcing to be carried out anywhere in the world, a business trend economists
call globalization. In general, domestic companies interested in offshore outsourcing
are not only trying to save money in order to be more price-competitive against
each other, but also to enable them to compete with businesses in other countries.
Critics of offshore outsourcing worry that if too much IT-related work is farmed
out to other countries, home-grown IT talent will "dry up." They point out that
once a company begins outsourcing overseas, they will find it difficult to reverse
the trend and justify paying more in salaries, taxes, and job benefits for the same
work they used to outsource. Proponents maintain that the judicious use of offshore
outsourcing will help make all IT workers become more productive and allow companies
to develop more agile and responsive business models, which in turn, will raise
salaries for domestic workers in all countries.
Outsourcing
More and more, organizations in developed countries are examining the option of
using offshore capabilities (in India, China and other countries) to perform parts
of their business operations, product development efforts or IT functions. In addition
to the obvious cost savings, this option also improves the turn-around times (due
to time-zone differences) and quality (due to easy availability of highly skilled,
trained and experienced resources).
While many large organizations have taken this plunge and are reaping the benefits
of offshore operations, there are still a number of organizations who have not started
to integrate offshore options into their operations thus putting themselves at a
disadvantage compared to their competitors who are aggressively pursuing these options.
This condition is especially prevalent among small to medium organizations which
do not have the expertise and resources needed to either set up their own offshore
operations or to select the right offshore partners that can match their needs.
With its extensive onshore and offshore experience and resources, PGS is ideally
suited to help such organizations explore the offshore options, devise the optimum
and custom offshore scenarios and set up the necessary infrastructure, processes,
coordination, resource recruitment and management.
For a start, all of the services and capabilities described in the previous pages
are available to our customers at Onshore or Offshore locations. PGS can help customers
with devising the right mix of Onsite, Nearshore and Offshore resources to execute
their projects or business processes in a cost-effective manner while maintaining
high quality and quick response/turn-around times. Through carefully selected partners,
PGS has access to facilities around the globe.
More specifically PGS is able to provide the following Offshore services to its
European customers. Of course, we can also customize and extend these services to
suit a customer's specific needs
Offshore Project Services
PGS provides access to professional engineering, IT and/or embedded systems skills
to help customers develop, enhance, maintain and support their products. Depending
on the requirements, chosen technologies and project frameworks, and customer's
comfort level,PGS defines the best location and partner to work with and PGS assigns
the right mix of onshore, nearshore and offshore resources to meet the customer's
cost, quality and milestone requirements. Based on customer preferences, PGS can
either deliver the project on a fixed-price basis with PGS providing Project Management
or provide resources (people, facilities, network bandwidth etc.) under a Time-and-Materials
basis to work under the customer's Project Manager(s). If the latter option is selected,
PGS will assign an onshore Project Coordinator to facilitate the communication and
customer satisfaction.
Build-Operate-Transfer Service
Under this service, also called the Offshore Branch Service, PGS will set up captive
offshore unit(s) dedicated to a specific customer. This includes the acquisition
of offshore facilities, setting up the administrative, technical and network infrastructure,
recruitment of offshore personnel meeting the customer requirements, appropriate
training in customer's products, methodologies and tools, and placing into service
the unit as a natural extension of the customer's development organization or business
process. While this unit will operate under the direction of the customer manager(s),
PGS will assign an onshore client manager to train the customer, to adopt its business
processes, to monitor and resolve issues related to communication, schedule and
quality. These units will be initially set up under the legal ownership of PGS or
a trusted partner minimizing the risks for the customer. After the unit(s) is in
satisfactory operation for some time, the customer may elect to absorb the unit(s)
as a legal part of its organization.
Offshore Staff Augmentation
For customers who are setting up or operating their own offshore operations, PGS
provides contract personnel of all disciplines on a temporary or indefinite basis
to work under the customer's supervision. Typically, the work is performed at the
customer's facility but PGS offers a value-added feature in which it can provide
even floor space and facilities at sites of reliable partners to carry out the work.
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