Offshoring and Onshoring - A Revolution Through IT

The importance of Information Technology (IT) and the preceding digital revolution through which it was brought cannot be undermined in any context. I had been working in this space for around 11 years and never felt its importance any less. The digital revolution can move mountains and has been moving them for some time. It is not just confined to its limited space but has the power to penetrate most other avenues bringing about new possibilities and changes. This is not even three or four decades old but already has a profound impact on the planet. With the invention of computing and the associated tools there is a huge wave which has been bought to the forefront that is positively shaping the world around us. I am leaning in front of the computer for better part of the day and can’t imagine myself doing anything without its presence. Here I am once again working my way through on a PC on a routine weekend, trying to share my views about the relevance of these machines. 

I came to work onsite in U.S. exactly a year ago. There are several perspectives that can come out of this simple statement. What is the work, what is onsite and where does U.S. come into the picture. I used to work entirely on a system in an offshore model back in India. This offshore model of work started for me more than 13 years ago. I started working for U.S. but remotely from India since the month of April 2010. One would never believe that I never worked for an end user who is from India. I never got employment from an Indian client till date either. Hence the job I am working for so long has been the largesse of countries like U.S. and Australia. I never know if I can be working for any Indian entity in the future either. It is easy to deduce that the digital revolution brought about these important jobs to India from countries like U.S., Australia and other developed world. If not for this trend I never knew I could have done anything I did over all these years and survived.

 

Hence from 2010, barring few years in between, I had been working entirely in the great offshore model. While I never worked ‘for’ a client in India, I worked ‘on’ the canvas called India painting a beautiful picture in the home nation. In a way, it can be said that India was never in my picture in the job till date. I was given employment, given work to do and given money by these western nations through an Indian channel. While everything came from the west, who are my survivors, bread and butter winners; I worked on the Indian apparatus turning an important decade in its progress. I never knew if I can be employed by an Indian firm for the kind of person that I am. Like the remote work I do, I am remotely controlled from these foreign nations where my managers reside. Hence the source of vitality, support, and strength is networked from these western nations through the figurative representation of internet cables connecting nations through oceans.

  

At the peak of this offshore model working for me, over the past few years, I felt like I am an outsider in the home nation. When you are working for someone in the faraway land, with the kind of heavy routines, the people in the home nation watched me from a distance while they were never in the picture. I am not answerable to anyone in India, I am not controlled by anyone from home nation either made the Indian i.e. me look like ‘Non-Indian' in India. Those are the high points of working in this model. I don’t feel belonged to the nation as I never really connected to them by working with them in a job. I would have never been given this much freedom to be myself and express myself if I was employed natively. If I couldn’t adapt to the native land, I could have faded away to irrelevance long back in the absence of these special jobs. I couldn’t have done the work of my Lord for so long as well. But all along this foreignness, those are the same times which are of lot of value and service to the home nation as well.

 

In 2017, I travelled to U.S. for 6 months and returned back to India in search of a job. I was employed in India by a U.S. company in its offshore branch. This offshore model worked beautifully in that middle period all the way till last year. I worked hard after returning from U.S. at that time to survive in the job and continued in the same vein all along till last year. Thus, working in a job has my foundation in U.S. and got a job in U.S. company after reaching India. This classic offshore model tested the depths of U.S. while improving India. I came to U.S. last year and this time around, the time elapsed is not 6 months but one year. I am working hard, not in offshore but in onsite. The earlier offshore model didn’t kick-in this time around as things are near-shoring or on-shoring and I am getting flown in this strengthening on-site model. Maybe we need a re-jig, rethink and re-invent the classic offshore model to keep it flowing back in home nation.

 

There is also merit in on-shoring the resources who worked in the offshore model for over a decade. It is giving back to the parent organizations and parent nation after contributing for so long in a remote location. Hence, this on-site stint is more than justified in the pursuit to contribute to the originating source nation. When you work for these clients from India, to the advantage of India for nearly 10 years, there has to be an outlet to give back to the foreign nation in the best possible tenure. You cannot milk the cow without strengthening it. After working for so long, I think one needs to definitely contribute from onsite for everyone concerned. I am in that phase of my job with significance in providing value and giving back to foreign nation.

 

I am not alone in this offshore model back in India, neither alone in onsite since a year. If India ever clicked in an area of international trade, it is in this offshoring or exporting IT services. The IT industry employs nearly 50 lakh and is one of the largest contributors to India's exports, accounting for around 45% of the country's total exports of services. If at all India can export something of value to other countries, it is these IT services through the offshoring model. It is as well a known fact that Indians receive 70% of H1B visas issued in a year and reach U.S. to work in this onsite model. We are thus riding in this wave where there is lot of human capital from India working in these remote and onsite positions created by this IT revolution. According to industry estimates, Indian IT companies export their services to over 80 countries worldwide. Excluding the billion plus population and the inefficiencies, Indians have created a name for themselves as a top global IT exporter in the world by virtue of this offshoring model. Being a part of this successful growth story, there is onus on us to contribute as much as we can to the rest of the nation, since the boon came from their hardship and sacrifices.

 

If IT enabled products and services exports is what clicked for India, the biggest enabler for India in the U.S. Besides creating hardware, software and all the tools required, U.S. is the single biggest market for India’s exports in IT. For all the eccentricity the country oozes, U.S. is the leader of the pack in contributing positively to the Indian story. I never knew much of this and just followed the path to realize the American dream. When your dream is being realized in the past one year, you knew that you are contributing to many other causes as well. This offshoring model should continue for many decades to come and the onsite model should also continue for many more decades, to create and recreate many stories like mine – a poor, small Indian boy making it big in the backdrop of this IT revolution.