Outsourcing has become part of the business lexicon as big companies
around the globe have opted for delegating some of their operations to
external firms in a bid to gain a competitive edge in cut-throat global
market.
Delegation of production and services has resulted
into businesses operating in a distributed environment -- now a
commonplace term as the spread of the internet has turned the planet
into a global village where everybody is virtually connected to each
other. This development has driven the corporate world to adopt
information technology (IT) as an integral part of their operations
because it paves the way for them to outsource their businesses.
Outsourcing
is a business strategy. Companies now transfer their non-core
operations to external service providers in order to achieve optimum
result within a specific timeframe. Outsourcing, however, is not above
controversy. But then it is considered as a solution to increasing
efficiency, cutting down operation costs and generating more revenue.
India is now the ideal destination for firms to outsource their
services. Many US-based companies purchase services from India,
spawning call centres there. In addition, many Indian software
companies provide their foreign clients with cutting edge software
solutions. All these have generated huge employment for IT-educated
people in the next-door country.
Apart from India, many eastern
European countries develop animations for Hollywood movies. Dependence
on technology and a shortage of IT-skilled people in some developed
countries have driven big corporations to the developing world where
labour is also cheap. All these have made outsourcing an immense
opportunity for the IT industry in developing countries.
Bangladesh
is still at the nascent stage in this sector. But we have the potential
to tap this lucrative business. Outsourcing here first began in 1988.
Since then the country has overcome many obstacles but it is yet to do
better in the global market.
At this moment nearly fifty
companies in Bangladesh are providing outsourcing service for more than
thirty countries including USA, some EU countries, Switzerland, Canada,
Japan, Australia, South Africa, the Middle East, Thailand and Malaysia.
Outsourcing services provided by Bangladeshi companies are
offshore software development (business application, web services,
games, cell phone application, embedded software, VLSI etc), animation
(2D & 3D-cartoon, web publication, advertisement, 3D modelling), IT
enabled services (GIS, CAD/CAE, architectural visualisation, network
maintenance, desktop publication, document conversion), BPO (call
centre, e-accounting, HR/payroll), software testing and verification
service etc.
"We need a long-term vision as well as a
strategic planning in order to move ourselves in the right direction",
T.I.M. Nurul Kabir, a well-known IT personality and CEO of
Spinnovation, told StarTech. "Bangladesh has tremendous potential in
IT. The government should come forward to highlight this in the
international arena", he added.
Spinnovation is a technology,
consulting, outsourcing solution and services company which is
affiliated with global leaders like Microsoft, Landsteinar Strengur hf,
Avantus, Sagem Defence Securities, Borland etc. The company
concentrates on areas such as telecommunications, manufacturing, retail
store, health care, financial institution, distribution, estate etc.
Services
available from Spinnovation are application development in .Net and
Java, software QA and testing, ERP, CRM, SCM consulting, project
management consulting, application lifecycle management etc. Recently
Spinnovation, as partner of Microsoft and Landsteinar Strengur hf, has
delivered the Point of Sale (POS) solution to all customer interaction
centres of GrameenPhone, widely known as GrameenPhone Centre (GPC).
AKM
Ahmedul Islam, COO, Bangladesh Japan Information Technology (BJIT) Ltd,
expressed his concern about bandwidth price. He told StarTech that
"highly expensive bandwidth is one of the major setbacks for
outsourcing services in Bangladesh. We require one mega bandwidth for
each PC when testing software. Existing bandwidth price is a great
hurdle for us."
BJIT is the first joint venture ICT company
having offices in Dhaka and Tokyo. It operates in four business areas
-- software development, software testing, CAD/CAE and technology
consulting. The company has already proved itself a success. It is
currently working for renowned companies like Nokia, IBM Japan, NTT
Data, Access Co Ltd and Metso Paper.
In 2002 BJIT teamed up
with Taito, a famous Japanese game company, to develop four games for
Nokia. These games were developed on Symbian platform for Nokia N-Gage
device.
Bangladesh Association of Software and Information
Services (BASIS) has taken some pragmatic initiatives such as
'IT-upgrade' and 'BITMAP' to create awareness and develop expertise in
local IT companies to compete in the international market.
IT-upgrade
is a project funded by the Asia Investment Programme of European Union
and implemented by BASIS with technical assistance from Germany's
Bremen University and Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The
project focuses on providing training for BASIS companies in software
development and transferring European know-how to them so that they
become eligible to sell their products and services in the European
markets.
Recently, BASIS has unveiled BITMAP (The Bangladesh
Information Technology Management Programme), an initiative to build
the capacity of local IT industry. This project is also funded by the
EU's Asia Investment Programme. Partners of the programme are
Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises (DFSME), Denmark, Greater
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, UK and T&E, Finland.
Outsourcing
brings a ray of hope to exhibit our innovations and prove our
competency. We should utilise this unique scope for the sustainable
development of IT industry. An alliance between academia and industry
could play an important role in turning our youngsters into resources.
Trackback(0)
Comments 
Write comment
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed