Emerging Trends in Outsourcing

Abstract

Outsourcing has been conventionally viewed as a solution to generate quick profits and provide business continuity. The previous decades have seen the emergence of the Information Age, where the key focus was on knowledge acquisition and application. We are now progressing towards the era that revolves around “concept” development from an era that was information-dependent. This age, referred to as the Conceptual Age, will be dominated by six new senses: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning; and shall focus on the human resource development aspects. This creates a need to diverge from the current reliance on linear and sequential algorithmic practices in outsourcing and to adopt cognition based engineering and management approaches. This chapter lays the foundation for Offshore Engineering and Management (OEM) and discusses estimation issues in OEM that have their roots in software engineering. Also, this chapter identifies the limitations of the current methodologies from an outsourcing point of view, and delineates how they can be deployed effectively for an outsourced environment.