The 5 trends for online outsourcing are:
1. Consolidation
Expect some significant consolidation on the horizon. Outsourcing competition is more aggressive than ever with a huge expansion in the number of suppliers. Industry experts are predicting more mergers and acquisition activity over the next couple of years.
2. Increased Outsourcing to China
There has long been talk of India losing its edge in the offshore outsourcing market. However; Major cities in China close the gap year-by-year and is taking major steps to close the skills gap for many types of outsourcing sectors. The trend also encourages greater specialization as smaller providers seek to differentiate themselves in an ever more crowded marketplace
3. Niche Outsourcing
Specialist providers are successfully getting more deals at the loss of both the top level service providers and the lower midrange providers. As the outsourcing market rapidly continues to expand the larger service providers can carry on protecting their earnings even with a reducing market share, the most likely affected will be the midlevel service providers who do not have a good strategy to overcome this problem. So many of the large long-established service providers may change their focus and try to win more of the smaller contracts
4. Person-to-person offshoring
The idea of offshoring and online outsourcing is more commonly associated with large-scale business and the relocation of back-office functions. But there is growing momentum on a much smaller scale. Offshoring and online outsourcing has reached small businesses private homes. Examples of services performed include online tutoring, web and software development, and writing and translation services.
5. Virtual worlds
The evolution of social networking has brought about the emergence of a virtual world called “Second Life”. A partnership between Sweden based Entropia Universe and Beijing based Cyber Recreation Development. The 3D world is where “residents” can interact and setup businesses. It’s still early days for virtual world-based outsourcing but businesses like Adidas, Sun Microsystems and Nissan are already onboard and the momentum is likely to build. Over the longer term, customer-contact jobs such as helpdesk or call centre roles could migrate into virtual worlds, where customers can be informed and entertained.
