| Beyond Politics: Do Job Creation and Outsourcing Go Hand in Hand? |
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This weeks announcement between Dr Pepper Snapple and HCL Technologies has us thinking about how the practice of Outsourcing has been changing in recent years. Traditionally viewed as simply a means of cost arbitrage (effectively, moving work from one high cost location to an alternate lower paying one while maintaining or increasing the level of service delivered), a mix of economic and political realities have been forcing a shift in thinking and the DPS-HCL deal seems to be an example of this changing trend. The core elements of the deal are your standard outsourcing fare – HCL will provide IT application and infrastructure operations and management services to DPS, which essentially means it will manage DPS’ computer networks. However, one aspect of the relationship specifically caught our eye: HCL said that Dr Pepper Snapple would be its “anchor service desk customer” in an operation in Raleigh, N.C., that would eventually employ 500. With the new deal, HCL is continuing to “bring on new staff at our new facility in North Carolina,” Shami Khorana, president of HCL America, said in a statement.
In other words, not only is HCL outsourcing (and offshoring) DPS’ IT work to its own offshore locations (cost arbitrage was no doubt a key factor in the deal) but it will be ‘onshoring’ jobs as well as part of the deal. Indeed, as the NY Times put it: |