A Disappointing IT Trend

An article posted on ITnews earlier in the month brought light to a situation that is unfortunate, but reflective of a disappointing national trend.

According to the article, small and medium-size Indian outsourcers are gaining favor with customers during the recession because of the lower prices they can offer, and also because they are willing to take up smaller contracts, according to Forrester Research.

While large corporations (Dell example number 1) often choose to ship their It departments overseas, lately large IT corporation have seen a drop in business. Reluctant to drop prices, and an inability to communicate the value of going with a large IT firm has steered many companies who choose to outsource overseas to smaller, less expensive IT firms.

Another factor is the magnitude of business that these smaller firms are winning. Large Indian outsourcers are not keen on small orders of less than about US$6 million a year, the article said. As large Indian outsourcers like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies start competing with the likes of IBM and Accenture, their focus is on large deal sizes, which leaves a significant part of the market vacant for smaller players.

While IT support coming from overseas may not seem like anything new, there is an alarming trend here. By taking business to overseas IT companies, corporations are taking business away from small to mid-sized IT firms here in the US. With the economy already deep into a recession, companies who take even more business away from an anemic economy are doing more damage than anything, no matter how much money they might be saving.

By choosing a local IT firm, not only are you doing justice for your fellow American workers, but you are calling upon a service that you can actually come face to face with when you have a problem. IT is a sector of business that must be running properly at all times. In the event of some major IT problem, the piece of mind of knowing that your IT services provider is close to home outweighs any amount of numerical savings.

Do the right thing, and keep IT here in America.

If you are as small business in search of superior and local IT support, check out our website, or email me at joecarretta@thetnsgroup.com