Looking ahead to 2010

MY WORD!

What can Americans do as their hi-tech jobs trickle away to foreign shores? That's the question of the month at CIO magazine. Should they shrug their shoulders and say that the advantages of outsourcing are too great and that nothing can be done to stop it?

Should they race to their PCs and dash of a letter to their senator or Congressman? Or, should they pick up the phone and call Tom Tancredo the Republican Congressman, who has been waving the battle standard against foreign foes.

And what about the CIOs, stuck in Denver or Detroit, who are now studying maps of the world because their hi-tech employees "" or their company's outsourced work "" are now located in remote corners of the globe from Accra to Penang? Intel's chief information officer, the magazine points out, already oversees infotech workers in 27 countries.

To answer these questions CIO magazine has attempted to paint a scenario of the future? It asked senior IT executives and eminent thinkers in the field to offer their views about what the infotech industry will look like in 2010.

The answers aren't very convincing and they probably indicate that Americans don't really know how to tackle the loss of jobs that is expected to take place in coming years. Their only hope for the future is that America will continue to innovate and to stay on the cutting edge. "Commoditised jobs will go overseas," says one IT thinker when asked about what the future will look like.

According to the more optimistic picture, Americans will keep the most complicated and sophisticated tasks for themselves. Also, any reasonably sophisticated job that requires close contact with the customer will stay in the US. The rest will be outsourced to cheaper destinations. Says CIO: "The United States will still have a sizable population of IT professionals doing high-level work on strategy, implementation and design."

CIO does paint an alternative "" and, for Americans, much gloomier "" scenario. According to this vision by 2007 Tata Consultancy Services has become the world's top IT services provider, far ahead of companies like Accenture and IBM Global Services.

It has opened a new world headquarters in New York and it's at the absolute top end of the market. What's more, it has hired the best brains available in America and is competing on equal footing with US companies.

The people who see TCS as the world's top IT services provider argue that as their experience grows, such companies are bound to tackle more complex work. Sooner or later, therefore, they will catch up with the best American companies and will be able to offer the same sophisticated services.

Did anyone argue that outsourcing should be stopped immediately? The fact is that it is difficult to argue against outsourcing "" the cost savings are compelling. According to consultancy firm NeoIT an Indian programmer with two or three years experience is likely to earn about $ 7,500 and an equivalent person in Russia might get about $10,000. In the United States, a similar person would get about $ 65,000. As one slightly cynical chief executive remarked recently after outsourcing to India: "We are getting half the efficiency at a quarter of the salary. That's still a good bargain."

Is it possible to stop the Third World hordes from taking over the infotech industry? Those who, from an American point of view are pessimistic about the future say that the only way is to slash back the number of H1-B and L-1 visas being issued.

Stopping or cutting down on these visas could hit onshore work and that would make outsourcing an extremely difficult proposition. That's why websites like hireamericancitizens.org concentrate their wrath on these visas.

Nevertheless, it's a safe bet that companies will find a way around such minor hurdles. So, perhaps the US hi-tech worker of the future will have to resign him or herself to a future where solutions for problems are sought from around the world.