Overseas Movement of Support Functions Continues

Some of the latest surveys in the marketplace today continue to show a trend towards moving support functions offshore. In fact, U.S. financial institutions will likely continue to lead the exportation of back office jobs over the coming years. This relocation is part of a bid to reduce annual operating costs. Recent estimates have put the number of jobs targeted as possible offshore candidates as high as 500,000 resulting in savings in excess of $30 billion.

While back office functions such as data entry, customer service call centers, transaction processing and account reconciliation traditionally have been candidates for offshore job transfer, relocations have been opened up for such functions as human resources, financial analysis, regulatory reporting and research. The one common thread amongst these functions – lack of face-to-face interaction required.

Using criteria such as presence of multinational corporations, the availability of skilled labor and the degree of technology, India continues to hold on to the top spot for offshore business processing. Alternate choice locations that have made significant progress in gaining a share of this market include Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, Hungary, Ireland, Czech Republic, Australia, Russia and China.