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Originally Posted by Caspar
First of all let me say I don't support off-shoreing work that UK employee's currently have just to save money, even if it is:
My point is..what technically does off-shoring mean!... My understanding of people's hatred of the practice comes from UK companies cutting jobs and moving the work to ASIA.
But how can the same term be applied to a non-UK company, such as HSBC...which is a Hong Kong Bank, arn't they just pulling out of the UK, to some degree?
Please enlighten me on the subtle differences in UK/International companies and off-shoreing?
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HSBC is a UK listed plc, so technically a British company in the same way Glaxo or Shell is a British company.
From a corporate point of view they need to comply with tax and legal requirements of each country they operate in, but ultimately these entities roll up to a UK company and the global profits are subject to UK corporation tax. As an aside, many global companies have multiple listings. HSBC shares are traded in London (primary) and also NY, Paris and HK.
Ofshoring to me means servicing a customer or need from outside the country of the customer (or primary customer base). It can of course have it's advantages if done well, take the US Airlines for example, most have call centres in the middle of the US, Dublin and an Asian location, this means you can have 24 hr call servicing and people working during their normal daylight hours, such ofshoring is good - well better than creating an army of nightworkers IMHO. It's less good when you move (sorry recruit) a whole army of CSRs to another continent.
IMHO in time the tide will turn, there are a lot of talented english speaking people in India, but as more firms set up these centres the laws of supply and demand will push the cost of this labour up changing the economics of the ofshoring process.