More high-value work to move to India, says Yourdon

Circuit EC / Bangalore

More high-value work is expected to move to India and offshoring to India is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, believes Edward Yourdon, an authority on software development who is also the director and member of the iGATE Global Solutions board. “At present we see a lot of unattractive work like software maintenance and back office processes being outsourced to India. Although lots of MNCs are starting out by outsourcing commodity jobs to India they will eventually outsource high-value work like strategic planning and network design to India in the years to come. Around 10-20 percent of US IT jobs are likely to be outsourced in the next 5-10 years,” said Yourdon.

He also said that recent years have seen IT budgets reduce with consequent cutbacks in IT staff. This has compelled CIOs and IT managers to look at ways to cut costs drastically and the low costs of offshore IT professionals have been one of the major drivers behind the growth of work getting outsourced to countries like India. Yourdon is bullish about Web services and ubiquitous computing. He said, “I think we will see a tremendous growth in products, services and applications in this area that will offer tremendous opportunities for vendors with acquired experience and knowledge of these technologies.” Yourdon is of the opinion that although the enrolment of students in computer science courses has dropped drastically in the US due to shortage of jobs in the IT sector, there is hope that it will pick up in the future.