The West, Outsourcing & Economic Prosperity

In a NYTimes interview, Mr. Azim Premji says that the important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles. The West is not producing enough engineers. The United States will produce 75,000 engineers this year; they will produce more sports therapists than engineers. Germany, the great engineering power of Europe, will produce 35,000 engineers this year; they will produce more architects than engineers. While the numbers may be slightly more, it does indeed convey the message. With higher educations becoming more commonly available, the indications are getting stronger and the trend is clear. That does not mean despair for western economies. Even while rising tides of cheaper technical talent create greater innovation opportunities, transforming educational capacity into sustainable economic prosperity is not just a plain equation. I still believe that entrepreneurism and dynamic readjustements would help the US to be a very competitive nation in future as well. I do not think that it needs to be seen as one-or-zero situation. As I wrote earlier, the US is the economic engine of the world – lets hope that it continues to innovate faster, better and emerge stronger. Collaboration in innovation is always a workable solution. Together with the Asia let more innovation blossom and let the world prosper a lot more - innovation and prosperity are closely related.