Outsourcing of work is not a recent phenomenon – it has
been around for a while. The practice of outsourcing dates back to
early 1700s, wherein manufacturers in Europe, during the industrial
revolution, started outsourcing the manufacturing of goods to low
cost locations.
While the outsourcing as a phenomenon has been around centuries,
the real impetus to outsourcing was provided by the technological
advances of the late 20th century. The advent of computers and
later – the Internet, provided much needed platform to
outsourcing, which was absent earlier.
In India, the outsourcing as an industry has developed in phases
– in the early phases, i.e. 1990's, mainly the
Information Technology related services were outsourced to India.
Again, the development of telecom and IP based communication
provided a push to the next phase, which witnessed the outsourcing
of Business Processes – mainly the call centers functions of
the big corporations. Many companies in US and
