Outsourcing Law & Business Journal – March 2011
March 31, 2011 by Bierce & Kenerson, P.C.
OUTSOURCING LAW & BUSINESS JOURNAL™ : Strategies and rules for adding value and improving legal and regulation compliance through business process management techniques in strategic alliances, joint ventures, shared services and cost-effective, durable and flexible sourcing of services. www.outsourcing-law.com. Visit our blog at http://blog.outsourcing-law.com.
Insights by Bierce & Kenerson, P.C. Editor. www.biercekenerson.com.
Vol. 11, No. 2 March 2011
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Editor’s Note: The recently re-introduced, updated Startup Visa Act, while stringent in its requirements for two year visas to immigrant entrepreneurs, could give a boost to the U.S. economy. We also review the recent “open letter” to India’s government from major service providers and business leaders in India calling for reform and more attention to civil rights, social equity and a more responsible government.
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1. Global Entrepreneurship and U.S. Innovation and Job Creation through Employer-Based Immigrant Visas.
2. Anti-Corruption Open Letter by Wipro’s Chairman and Others: Corporate Social Responsibility in Outsourcing in india (and other Emerging Countries).
3. Humor.
4. Conferences.
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1. Global Entrepreneurship and U.S. Innovation and Job Creation through Employer-Based Immigrant Visas. The global services economy has caused job functions to be performed in foreign countries instead of locally at the headquarters. Global entrepreneurship offers one possible means for developing jobs locally. Not only can Americans establish global services companies with employees in the U.S. and abroad. Foreigners can do the same under existing U.S. immigration laws. Under a proposed law sponsored by Senators Kerry (D-Massachusetts), Lugar (R-Indiana) and Udall (D-Colorado), U.S. job creation would get a boost from a new employer-based visa for alien entrepreneurs who have received significant capital from U.S. investors. The proposal would promote U.S. jobs and would encourage U.S. investors (including “angel” accredited investors and private equity funds) to support global entrepreneurship. For more, click here.
2. Anti-Corruption Open Letter by Wipro’s Chairman and Others: Corporate Social Responsibility in Outsourcing in india (and other Emerging Countries). Outsourcing has created a middle class and an educated wealthy elite in India and other emerging countries. The legal framework that promotes private industry and international trade in services also distributes the benefits unequally. In a January 2011 “open letter” to the Indian Government, business leaders of Wipro and Mahindra (and other Indian industry) asked the Indian government for more attention to civil rights, social equity and clean and responsible government. For more, click here.
3. Humor.
Global Entrepreneur, n. (1) entrepreneur ready to move risks from one territory to another.
Socially Responsible Sourcing, n. (1) best practices in cutting costs without cutting headcount, innovation or indigenous cultures; (2) suboptimization in sourcing.
4. Conferences.
May 4-5, 2011, Aitec Africa presents 5th Annual African outsourcing Summit, Nairobi, Kenya. This conference will gather an unprecedented level of international expertise for emerging BPO enterprises to tap into. This East African Outsourcing & Contact Centre Cofnerence aims to provide a stimulating and informative platform for the region’s emerging BPO enterprises to gain the knowledge, inspiration and business contacts they need to become world-class service providers, learning from international best practices in outsourcing – as well as from competitors and potential business partners closer to home. For more information, visit their website.
May 23-25, 2011, SSON’s 11th Annual Shared Services for Finance & Accounting, Dallas, Texas. This event brings togther industry leaders to provide the fundamentals of efficiency, quality and service and show innovative ways to grow you shared service center:
- Drive efficiency: Build a value proposition outside of just productivity to further improve quality and decrease costs.
- Current trends: Debate in-house vs. outsourcing strategies and make sure you choose the right model and technologies for your business
- Process ownership: Continually improve your shared service center to enable growth
- Accelerate improvement: Re-engineer processes to move beyond labor arbitrage
Create a clear strategy for your business with case studies presented by ING< Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, PepsiCo, Walmart, Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, Kraft and many more! To register, visit www.SharedServicesFA.com, call 1-800-882-8684 or email iqpc@iqpc.com. Mention code SSFAOL20 for an exclusive 20% discount available to outsourcing-law.com subscribers.
May 23-25, 2011, SSON presents its 9th Annual HR Shared Services and Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, Illinois, which focuses on Trends in HR Transformation dn HR Shared Services for the Next Decade. This conference will look back at what’s worked and provide you with a look forward to new trends in operations, models, globalization, virtualization, enabling technologies, staffing and much, much more. Whether you are in the beginning, middle or mature stages of your HR transformation – or creation of HR Shared Services – the trends o this next decade will have an enormous impact on your success. For more information, please visit their website.
June 27 – 28, 2011, IQPC presents eDiscovery Strategies for Government, Washington, D.C. IQPC’s eDiscovery Strategies for Government will offer key insights to stay on top of emerging challenges and how to craft thorough, cost-effective and defensible eDiscovery. Additionally our expert faculty will provide key benefits for government organizations. Join IQPC’s eDiscovery Strategies for Government Summit to network and learn from your peers on how to proactively establish a protocol for preserving and gathering electronically stored information. Join members of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Department of Justice- Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Department of Agriculture and more. Visit their website for more information.
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Anti-Corruption Open letter by Wipro’s Chairman and Others: Corporation Social Responsibility in Outsourcing in India (and other Emerging Countries)
March 31, 2011 by Bierce & Kenerson, P.C.
Outsourcing has created a middle class and an educated wealthy elite in India and other emerging countries. The legal framework that promotes private industry and international trade in services also distributes the benefits unequally. In a January 2011 “open letter” to the Indian Government, business leaders of Wipro and Mahindra (and other Indian industry) asked the Indian government for more attention to civil rights, social equity and clean and responsible government.
Open Letter. The public letter calls on India’s government to reform “the widespread governance deficit almost in every sphere of national activity, covering government, business and institutions.” The key focus was to improve the quality of the rule of law through:
- attacking corruption “with a sense of urgency, determination and on a war footing,” including the establishment of anti-corruption special public commissioners.
- “creation of genuinely independent and constitutionally constituted regulatory bodies, manned by persons who are judicially trained in the field concerned.”
- elimination of excessive administrative discretionary decisionmaking that has been “routinely subjected to extraneous influences.”
- making governmental “investigative agencies and law enforcing bodies independent of the executive.”
- unrelenting action to pursue a national mission without dilution or digression from the challenges of achieving growth and alleviating poverty.
For the online version, see http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-an-open-letter-to-our-leaders/20110118.htm
Globalization of “Governance” and “Compliance.” The inspiration from this Open Letter draws upon the governance and compliance mandates imposed by well-drafted outsourcing contracts on the service providers in countries such as India. Governance, compliance and transparency are:
- legal mandates under U.S. securities laws (Sarbanes-Oxley), the U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (and similar non-US laws) and U.S. federal sentencing guidelines;
- accounting mandates under SAS 70, Type II audit guidelines;
- generally accepted “Business Process Management” principles that have evolved from ITIL software development guidelines and project management principles, and
- shareholder democracy as reflected in principles of fiduciary duty of directors and officers; and
- contingency planning and risk management for multinational enterprises seeking to concentrate back-office operations in a few specialized service centers.
Wipro’s Chairman Premji understands this linkage.
Social Impact, Legal Framework and Effective Sourcing. The January 2011 open letter highlights the social impact of global sourcing on India and, probably, other countries that have engaged in privatization and promotion of global entrepreneurship
Service Buyers. Enterprise customers now operate in an environment where “corporate social responsibility” (“CSR”) is measured by investors, local community groups, government and non-profits. When assessing prospective sourcing partners, enterprise customers should add the Open Letter criteria to their checklist and communicate the CSR issues for a dialogue. By addressing issues on the “rule of law” (versus “rule by bureaucrats”), the vendor selection process can serve the enterprise customer’s search for “viable” vendors, improve local legal frameworks and achieve more stable, predictable and resilient sourcing outcomes.
Service Providers. This plea by Wipro’s Chairman Premji and other Indian business leaders highlights the role of the service provider in promoting good governance in the host government. Service providers have a “bully pulpit” to promote social responsibility so that the benefits of globalization and outsourcing are distributed widely to the larger community in their countries. Focusing on a more transparent, less corrupt, less bureaucratic government will invite further foreign direct investment and avoid loss of opportunities for sustainable economic growth.
Global Sourcing Council. The Global Sourcing Council is a non-profit corporation dedicated to promoting sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility in global sourcing. See www.gscouncil.org to join. (Full disclosure: the author of this article is a member of the Board of Directors of this organization.)