India’s $50-billion outsourcing industry, reeling from the effects of the global meltdown, is upset with Pope Benedict XVI’s recent statement against outsourcing.“India’s outsourcing sector, which counts top global corporations as its customers and is up against rising protectionist clamour in the US, was quick to react, citing the inevitability of outsourcing in the era of globalisation and the importance of seeing business as what it is: business,” said today’s The Economic Times, a leading national daily in India.
“The so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders – namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society – in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who, therefore, enjoy extraordinary mobility,” noted Pope’s last week’s Encyclical, Caritas In Veritate (Love in Truth).
The financial daily quoted Raman Roy, a pioneer in offshore services in India, as saying, “Historically, trade is about outsourcing and the competitive advantage. Services and IT outsourcing is a little piece in the global trade continuum. Commerce will stop if outsourcing is curbed.”
The newspaper said that sections of the industry were taking the Pope’s message as a call against moving business from the developed West to developing countries in Asia and Latin America by a new “cosmopolitan class of managers who are answerable only to shareholders”.
However, Delhi’s Archbishop, Vincent M Concessao, told The Economic Times that the Church was in favour of outsourcing provided it took care of the interests of all concerned. “The Church will not speak in the interest of one country or another,” he clarified.
The daily also said that for large global companies like HP, IBM, P&G, GlaxoSmithKline and Michelin, more than 50 percent of revenue was earned outside their home countries. “Large companies can’t depend on just their local markets today.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to us or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that we agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Source (RI)
SV (ED)