“Tata Consultancy Services” (TCS) – the outsourcing company domiciled in Mumbai, India – has just announced that it will hire 1.200… Americans. Typically outsourcing companies, conventional wisdom goes, take jobs in the countries of their Western clients by offering to do clerical work (medical reimbursement paperwork, software development, ticketing…) in India or elsewhere at a fraction the cost that customers would bear in their country. But what the TCS is doing underlines once again how freedom of trade – even in services – is ultimately beneficial for everyone. TCS has acquired experience and expertise and is able to save costs even by operating in the countries of the customers. Its branches in America will then hire Americans, reversing the flow. Its rival - also Indian - "Infosys Technologies" is expanding in China: in Shanghai it will build a new office for about 7 thousand employees. Insourcing usually denotes an inverse process to outsourcing: the original decision to move part of the production processes abroad is canceled and jobs are repatriated. But it can also denote, as in this case, a different path. The company that receives the outsourcing orders grows so much that it allows itself to move part of the operations to the countries of the clients.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576385150117957570.html?mod=djemITPA_h
