Bangalore, India, has become the heart of IT outsourcing in Asia, especially for large ERP systems based on SAP and on Oracle. China, however, has become the place to for outsourcing requirements based on emerging technologies, such as Web services, service-oriented architecture, and business intelligence. In fact, a recent article in The Economist says that the economics of outsourcing to India have become unfavorable in the past few years. Reasons cited by the article include the salary inflation for IT professionals and the weakening of the U.S. dollar in relationship to the Indian rupee.  The article says that even outsourcing companies in India see the economic advantages of sourcing from the knowledge base of emerging technology in China.

No one knows more about China's rise as an IT outsourcing leader than Bernard (Bud) Mathaisel, senior vice president and CIO of Achievo. His company's IT outsourcing services model has a backend tie to China. This former CIO to major companies such as Solectron, Ford Motor Company, and Walt Disney, has spent a lot time in both China and in India.  In fact, he has lectured at four Chinese universities about IT services delivery.

He says, "The Chinese have placed a lot of emphasis on what the market for technology services will look like five to 10 years from now, and how the country will train people today in the technology disciplines that will be of value in the future."

Achievo has based its business model on having front-end customer relationships managed by Achievo employees in the same geographic locations as specific customers. The backend part of Achievo's business model focuses on having talent in China work on software development for Web services, and other IT projects, such as setting up a help desk. Mathaisel says, "We've developed a set of CMMI-5 compliant processes that enable us to deliver a high quality of software very efficiently and very securely to our global customers." Companies on Achievo's customer list include IBM, Sun Microsystems, Mercedes Benz, and Hitachi.

In this podcast, Bud Mathaisel, chief information officer and senior vice president of Achievo, talks about what differentiates his company's business model from other outsourcers, and how China will continue to change the face of IT outsourcing.

Bio

Bernard (Bud) F. Mathaisel is senior vice president and CIO of Achievo Corporation. He has worldwide responsibilities for the vision, strategy, and implementation of the company's IT technologies, policies, and program. Before Achievo, Mathaisel, who is a member of CIO magazine's editorial advisory board, was senior vice president and CIO for Solectron Corporation, a $14 billion electronics manufacturing firm.  He also has served as CIO at Ford Motor Company and Walt Disney Company. Early in his career, he founded the Ernst & Young's Center for Business Innovation in Boston. He has a bachelor's and master's degree in science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Resources

IT World - They Got Theirs

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Elizabeth M. Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
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