The Globalization of Services: the Second Annual Conference

Tuesday, December 12, 2006
12:00 AM - 6:00 PM
(Pacific)
Bechtel Conference Center

The rising sophistication of offshored service work is as dramatic as the continued speed with which offshoring is growing. The work now ranges from data entry and software services to datamining and R&D. The corporate strategies for offshoring services are increasingly complex as they combine international divisions of labor with both outsourced and internal provision. Not only have offshore service provision subsidiaries expanded, but also just as importantly, large developed nation outsourcing firms are rapidly expanding their offshore delivery capabilities.

The increasing cadre of outsourcing firms from developing nations, particularly India, but also Mexico, China and other countries in Asia, are shifting the terms of competition. They are dramatically improving their capabilities and are now capable of undertaking projects that are large in scale and sophistication.

The offshoring of service activities is no longer the province of only large firms as Silicon Valley firms and a myriad of smaller professional services firms are tapping offshore work delivery opportunities. This is leading to nothing less than a global reorganization of where and how non-manufacturing work is being done.

This conference, partially supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, brings together corporate leaders and university faculty to elucidate the complexities of global service provision and discuss the trends, the strategic issues, and policy implications. The conference will: (1) Compare outsourcing locally and globally, examining differences that arise from differences in skills, institutions, regulation, technologies, process and coordination requirements, (2) Take a global view of the value-chain, examining the quantity and quality of skills in-service delivery, migration and process management, verticals, and the impact on ownership structures and complexity of work done. (3) Examine roles of cross-border participants: venture capital, product developers, etc.

Global Services magazine, a division of CMP Technology has generously offered to be our media partner.

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