Now that we are aware that Indian offshore outsourcing companies have been the recipients of about 80% of the H-1B visas for the program’s top 10 participants in 2007, let’s take a closer look at how they were allocated.

The lion’s share, amounting to 4,559, went to Bangalore’s Infosys Technologies (INFY). That was followed by Wipro, also Bangalore based, with 2,567 visa petitions approved. (Of its 9,000 employees in the United States, Infosys has 7,500 employees on H-1B visas, while Wipro has 4,000 employees in the U.S of which 2,500 are on H-1B visas).

The other 2007 visa recipients included UST Global and Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) both of which are based in the U.S. but operate from India.
Only two American companies, Microsoft (MSFT) and Intel (INTC) figured in the to p 10. Whereas Microsoft obtained 959 visa petition approvals, Intel had to be satisfied with 369.
In spite of this American tech businesses are asking Congress to increase the number of visas from 65,000 a year to a minimum of 115,000.
This is sure to cause much heartburn with critics already accusing the outsourcers of abusing the American program. While the visas are expected to help boost the U.S. economy they feel they are doing the opposite by eliminating jobs and thus chipping away at the American economy. They feel the program’s standards can be tightened were the companies first be obliged to attempt employing Americans and also be obligated to guarantee that American personnel will not be supplanted by these visa employees.
Two senior legislators, Senators Grassley and Durbin have already initiated legislation for overhauling the H-1B and L-1 visa programs with the aim of giving American workers priority and of cracking down on unprincipled companies that dispossess eligible Americans of high-skill jobs.
Companies are now being asked to reveal details of the number of visas they hold, the wages paid, what efforts have been made to recruit eligible American workers, and whether any American workers have experienced the outsourcing of their responsibilities.
In their defense these two leading companies, Infosys and Wipro have declared earlier on that they are not misusing the program. In the past, they’ve said the jobs they fill in the U.S. are higher skilled than those in India, and involve custom software development and sales.

In its latest issue, BusinessWeek has reported that most of the offshore outsourcing companies granted H-1B visas last year were Indian ones, accounting for about 80% of the visa petitions that were approved for the program’s top 10 participants.
This follows requests to Congress by technologically advanced companies to augment the yearly allotment of H-1B visas, whereby highly educated foreigners can temporarily work in the United States.
But this is not likely to go down well with certain critics, however, who believe that this is helping to wipe out jobs for Americans. They claim that these companies low-cost workers are brought to the United. States, trained, and then returned home a year or two later from where they provide tech support and other services from abroad.
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With increased taxes, the increased costs of labor, production, and various other direct or indirect expenses, numerous countries are looking at outsourcing today even if perhaps they looked at it with jaundiced eyes a few years ago.
With the improvement of economies of developing countries like India, American and European countries are now seriously considering outsourcing their blue collar and protracted jobs in order to allow themselves more time and greater opportunities to concentrate on areas of their main expertise. Thus they are able to look at improving their marketing, expanding, and consider mergers and takeovers.
But in order to be successful at it and to get full satisfaction from it, it is very necessary to find the right firm to outsource to. Such companies should be reliable, well-equipped with qualified staff, and should be able to produce results on time. They should be experienced in handling overseas projects with minimum supervision and must be very cost-effective, which is the main objective for outsourcing in the first place. Only if the price factor remains constant and unchanging for a decent period of time and there is no confusion about the agreed pricing would it be worth it.
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Legalwise Outsourcing Inc. has introduced offshore legal outsourcing services to the Canadian market. It is expected to lower the expense of bluecollar legal tasks by offering offshore legal services across Canada.
Canadian lawyer and founder of Legalwise, Gavin Birer, has been quoted as saying, “……we’re finally giving law firms and in-house lawyers across the country access to the types of services the rest of the world has been using for several years…… It’s a model that makes perfect sense in an age where businesses are demanding greater value for their money from their lawyers.”
Legalwise clients have access to about 430 fully trained and qualified lawyers in Mumbai and Pune (India). Any qualms about services rendered can be put to rest. Quality control is in place. Although they have varying areas of expertise and different levels of experience, the lawyers’ work is supervised and examined by lawyers in Canada.
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In spite of the bar associations of New York, California and Los Angeles and others giving offshoring of legal support work by American attorneys to lawyers in other countries a clean chit, there still seems to be some apprehension about it. Large law firms have not jumped on to the band wagon as eagerly as expected and it is the smaller firms that appear to be diving in.
Let us look at one such firm, LegalEase Solutions. Based in Detroit this outsourcing business has about 50 American clients.
It has about 20 lawyers in India who perform all the regular tasks starting with researching legal precedents and proceeding to drafting briefs.
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In 2006 and 2007 the bar associations of New York, California and Los Angeles had declared their views that there appeared to be no ethical problems with the offshoring of legal support work by American attorneys to lawyers in other countries under certain conditions. Many United States attorneys and law firms are already adopting such ethical guidelines.
According to the president of SQ Global Solutions, Ram Vasudevan, this nod can only result in the Indian LPO market, currently measured at $130 million and with around 1,000 non-lawyers and lawyers, carrying out important legal outsourcing services in India, growing by leaps and bounds in the near future. In fact, according to Forrester Research, it is expected to reach $4-billion by 2015.
Vasudevan has been quoted as saying, “The guidelines state that US lawyers who are contemplating outsourcing legal services to other countries should inform their client that the work is being outsourced, besides protecting the client’s confidences. The US law firm should also be closely involved in the supervision of the outsourced work. In addition, the entity performing the work must perform conflict checks to avoid any unpleasant surprises.”
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Ernst & Young’s Associate Director of Technology and Security Risk Services, Devendra Parulekar, has been quoted as saying, “Organizations are beginning to recognize that information security can deliver more than just protection for information.” while releasing the 10th Annual Global Information Security Survey report.
The survey had been conducted in the latter half of 2007 while interviewing 1,300 senior executives in over 50 countries. Of these India, with 114 respondents, emerged as the second largest contributor.
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Intellectual Property is one of the most precious resources of your enterprise and must be properly protected. You must have your Intellectual Property safeguarded failing which you will face major problems once you start outsourcing. Your IP must be protected legally, physically and electronically.
Protecting Intellectual Property Legally
• Make an effort to understand the culture and legal system of the provider’s country.
• Learn about out how IP rights enforcement works in the country you are outsourcing to.
• Establish the country’s legal system that will regulate and have control over any agreement disputes.
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When considering outsourcing, a customer should first examine his possible associate’s capability of safeguarding private business information from embezzlement, abuse, theft, loss or damage.
Here are some things the customer should look into.
• Have you selected an established partner, one that will match your business strategy and will understand how to maintain the necessary level of security.
• What are the outsourcing vendor’s IP protection practices and data security that will protect the customer’s private information?
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While discussing the offshoring of Intellectual Property and its pitfalls the other day, it was recommended that IP due diligence and risk assessment should be employed to offset these dangers, safeguard its intellectual property as well as to identify the functions that should or should not be outsourced.
So, what does due diligence include? It may include the following:
• Identifying and documenting all of the Intellectual Property assets connected to the task to be outsourced
• Identifying which areas are of critical importance to your business
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