Outsourcing to India is nothing new. But today alone we’ve been cold called by 3 companies, all based in India, wanting us to outsource technical development. I’m not sure if this is good news or not really, but I do know it’s very annoying to have the same conversation over and over again! The only experience I’ve had of outsourcing to India didn’t go particularly well, so while I understand all the benefits (which I’m also continually being reminded by sales people on the phone), I’m still very reticent about the idea. That combined with my own frustrating experiences of dealing with some of the large outsourced support centres used by the likes of BT and Dell.

One thing I do find interesting is the increasing use of extremely English sounding names in the approach emails though, perhaps an attempt to sound less foreign and scary to little UK companies who might be put off by dealing with a foreign person. I’ve even had an email this week from an Indian company that are visiting the UK in the next couple of weeks and want to meet up with us to learn about “our unique India-Based Managed Service Proposition, the Virtual Offshore Development Centre”.

So Indian companies really seem to be upping the offensive… Should we, as a UK based services industry, be worried? Or should we be embracing this new pool of affordable talent and just let them do all the work?

Personally I think the time taken up today alone, trying to get off the phone to cold callers and deleting emails I don’t have time to read, puts me off the whole idea completely. But then perhaps if I outsourced all my work I’d have all the time in the world!