Offshoring trends: Gartner

Eight New Countries Moved into the Top 30 (Gartner's top 30, 2010/11 www.gartner.com)

India and China Remain Undisputed Leaders but Dynamic Market Sees Credible Alternatives in All Regions (Gartner's top 30, 2008 www.gartner.com)

In 2008, Global Offshore Spending to Grow More Than 40 Per Cent (Gartner's top 30, 2007 www.gartner.com)

How the US lost out on iPhone jobs

(via Peerside) Apple makes it clear that it isn't just labor costs that makes the US uncompetitive

"Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas"

Further Reading
New York Times Article By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER, 2012 link

Building effective teams Anywhere!

Alfredo Behrens writes about building effective teams in emerging markets. His examples highlight the fallacy of assuming that organisational members can simply collaborate and work effectively with any other organisational members. People know people, they come from different communities, different teams, different cultures. The simple notion that organisational members are interchangeable is inherently problematic.

Further reading
A, Behrens. Building Effective Teams in Emerging Markets. HBR Blog. 2012. (link)

Cases for Global Sourcing

1. You've got email MAT
2. Symantec moves off-shore
3. We need warm bodies
4. Celtic Tiger, Chinese Dragon
5. Keeping Pace with the local
6. Relocating knowledge
7. We have a problem Heuston
8. Happy Hollowing Customs
9. Managing global local
10. Core banking source

Visa-less offshore development?

Paypal founder backs Blueseed "visa-free entrepreneurship and tech incubator" (link)

Nation states require visas, employer sponsorship, and other impositions such as taxation and juridical regimes. All of these are obstacles to free movement of people, trade, and industry.

On the topic of national identity and nation states Einstein stated
"I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss , and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever" (link)

Comment on Peter Thiel's (Paypal co-founder) commitment to supporting Blueseed's floating "Googleplex of the Sea". Who gains? Who loses?

Global Pulse, who benefits?

Who benefits from data Philanthropy? Individuals, organisations and corporations have long dreamed of the free availability of social data. We now imagine that Orwellian vision to be so much closer by accessing messages in social networks, text messages, blogs, micro-blogs and other emerging social exchanges. Worthy causes break down our reluctance to give up or give over something we may have never appreciated fully. But who benefits?

“something is happening that is evident in the digital smoke signals... This is computational behavioral economics,” he said. “We’re part of a whole new science here.”

Robert Kirkpatrick, director of Global Pulse (quoted in Lohr, 2011)

References and further reading
Global Pulse: Harnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable. Website (link)
Steve Lohr, pSR1 The New York Times. December 18, 2011. (link, may require registration and/or fee)

You can outsource the work; you can't outsource the risk

RT @mrkwpalmer: "You can outsource the work; you can't outsource the risk" @BBGLINK #BBTech Raj Samani, McAfee #security