China still lacks experiences in IT outsourcing when compared to other countries. There is a need in research efforts in summarizing IT outsourcing theories and models that suit enterprises and the actual situation in China. However, as Chinese enterprises further deepen their IT applications, there is no doubt that the IT outsourcing industry has a bright future. Some have predicted that China will be among the world's top 3 countries in terms of IT outsourcing businesses between 2007 and 2010. It is already 2007 now. Has China really been among the World's top 3 countries in terms of ITO? What problems still need to be urgently solved on the road towards the goal? CCID Consulting will make the following analysis:
Direction of development remains unclear
Currently, many experts and scholars are talking about which model China should follow to develop ITO. CCID Consulting argues that any development road, be it the India model or other models, needs to depend on the actuation of a country. There is no contradiction between inherent experiences and innovations. China should decide the road that it is to take based on its national conditions. ITO is still in a starting stage in China. It is not mature yet. The country must start with ''doing processing work'' for others and can only become independent and then gradually establish its own brand after reaching a certain scale of and experiences in technology, personnel and management. Before establishing its independent brand, China must be the ''processing'' for others. Through outsourcing, enterprises can grow and become stronger in a short period of time, improve their international competitiveness and form their own brands faster.
Shortage in talent reserves
In pace with the fast growth of ITO, there is also a growing talent demand from enterprises. However, this is such a situation: On one hand, there are large numbers of university graduates who cannot find jobs each year. On the other hand, enterprises cannot find suitable persons to fill in their position vacancies. Some enterprises even say that if there is sufficient human resources support, there will be no problems for us to get orders. What is the reason behind this? Firstly, there is more examination-oriented education rather than qualification education in China. One-sided pursuit of enrollment quotas has made our students lack a spirit of innovations. Secondly, theory is separated from practice. We are too conventional in setting up university majors and lack a link with practice. The students which we train are sole bookworms and cannot quickly adapt to the work needs. In addition, students also have problems in their employment mentality. While there is anything wrong for students to look for enterprises with strength when they seek employment, many students have grandiose aims but puny abilities. Enterprises have to pay a very high training cost even if they want to recruit such students. This will increase corporate burdens. Finally, there is shortage of compound talents. Compare with people with monolithic skills, compound talents can save manpower cost for enterprises and more suit the requirements of work posts. This can shorten the talent training cycle and give full play to the strength of talents. This is why enterprises generally scramble for compound talents and practical talents. But at present, there are relatively few compound talents. This has made it entirely impossible for enterprises to build up their human resources reserves.
Lack of industry organizations that represent enterprises
When talking about technology outsourcing, many people are willing to compare China with India. Other aspects aside, India does have advantages in industry organization which China cannot rival. In India, there is an industry association called NASSCOM. This is a non-profit association registered in the form of company. It is no exaggeration to say that India's outsourcing success is attributable to this organization to a certain extent. It functions like the market department of a company. What is different is that it is the international ''market department'' of India's outsourcing industry. When a US company needs business outsourcing,
its first reaction is to turn to India, because NASSCOM has done its work to the best. For China to be among the world's top 3 countries for technology outsourcing, it is very important to set up a non-profit organization that can represent the industry to take part in international competitions.
Lack of experiences in large-scale team management
In China, a development team of over 100 persons will be considered a very big team. For India, big teams are often defined for 1,000 or even several thousand persons. Technology outsourcing enterprises in China need to find projects and solve the problem of personnel management. How to distribute a large project level by level and how to achieve seamless connection between employees and project teams and minimize management cost are the problems that a technology outsourcing company needs to solve.
Lack of ability to provide solutions to big international enterprises
Through surveys, experts at CCID Consulting think that no relationship of frontal conflict has been formed between China and India in technology outsourcing. It can be seen from the projects, which China has undertaken, our services are still at the rather low end of the industry, such as software development and testing. China has almost not involved in high-end services such as solution provision. This is mainly because the country does not possess too big strength in the fields ranging from consulting to design.
To sum up, there is still a long way for China to go to be among the world's top 3 countries in terms of IT outsourcing services between 2007 and 2010. There are also many problems for China to solve. But, there is one aspect which is certain: China must clearly understand its strengths and characteristics, find a road which suits its national situation and take it in a down-to-earth and persistent way. It is not just the responsibility for some enterprises to gain a place for China in the international technology outsourcing market. But, enterprises alone are not enough. The government should also offer corresponding manpower, materials and policy support.
