Outsourcing Times

Is Your Doctor Googling Your Symptoms?

Is it okay for your doctor to use Google search as part of his/her practice? Well, it has caused a furor in certain parts. There is an implied suggestion of incompetence over the process. But do you really think so? I mean if I don’t know how to solve a case and try to get help, it means I am competent enough to recognize when I need help. It also shows that curing a patient is uppermost on the doctor’s mind.

A recent study in Australia has actually approved of the practice in difficult cases. Using 26 difficult diagnostic cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital Googled three to five symptoms from each case. And guess what? There was a significant improvement in diagnosis using the search engine! Desicritics.org reports:

The controversy seems needless considering the larger trends that have been occurring in Western Medical Practice. The two trillion dollar U.S Health industry is increasingly forcing financially overburdened Americans to seek other avenues for their health procedures. The internet has opened their eyes to the possibility of affordable health care in foreign destinations, India being a particular hot spot.

Read more: Medical Procedure Outsourcing: Truly Alternative Medicine

'Education Stays Home'

Outsourcing doesn’t work every time, everywhere. Recently, the New York City Department of Education virtually prohibited US companies from hiring teachers from other countries. The main reason cited was that it was not possible to undertake their background checks in foreign states. For quite some time now, a controversy had been raging about whether US companies can employ teachers in other countries to tutor American children.

Given the huge shortage of teachers in the country, it seemed like a logical next step. The companies planning distant learning had argued that since the student and teacher do not come into contact, do not talk with each other and as everything is done on computers, the background checks are unnecessary. Dnaindia.com reports:

But the officials did not agree as the rules provided that teachers must give their finger prints and social security numbers, the latter which only American educators can give. As a result, the New York authorities cancelled the $2 million a year contract of a Texas-based Indian American owned company Socratic Learning Inc, which, the Educations Department said had employed 250 teachers in India and was expected to tutor some 2,000 children.

Read more: NY dept prohibits US firms from outsourcing teaching

Security Projects – The major contributor in Outsourcing!

-- By Priya Venkatesh, Staff Writer

Are you into outsourcing? Do you outsource your work overseas? Here is an piece of interesting news for you!

A recent survey by the CSI & FBI uncovered the steep increase in the sub contraction of security functions around the globe.The survey has unveiled that the rate of outsourcing of security related projects has approximately doubled when compared to the statistical data of year 2005.

It is believed that the decrease in the number of security breaches & reduction in monetary losses due to outsourcing have accounted to the results of this survey!

Read one of my previous post on 'Driving towards a highly secure IT Network' to know the security measures taken by the IT companies across the globe!

Driving towards a highly secure IT Network!

-- By Priya Venkatesh, Staff Writer

Are you afraid of the security breaches occurring in the IT network as on date? Do you have second thoughts in outsourcing your work due to this fact? Read on to know how proactive the IT industry is in enhancing the security?

You know that the first phase of security was in the form of restricting users to confidential data. The second phase involved the design of counter attacking the viruses & Trojans after they induce damage to the network!

Moving towards the third phase of security, the IT vendors have decided on integrating security features as a part of application development across the globe.

IT big shots are trying to evolve well-defined security standards & architectures that could form the basis of security in all future business critical processes across the globe!

Read more on 'Data Security Tightened in India' in one of our previous posts to know the measures taken by India to circumvent the probelm of security in outsourcing.

Outsourcing concern raises its head in Australia

All of us know that outsourcing can be a double-edged sword. For the outsourcer, it certainly helps cut costs in business processes, but there is also the lurking danger of private data going public. In an older post, we have mentioned how real this concern is among outsourcers.

This concern over data security is particularly serious in the banking sector, where the outsource vendor is literally playing with considerable personal information.

Not surprisingly, the Finance Sector Union (FSU) has inserted advertisements in newspapers all over Australia to emphasize this concern over data safety. The Union is exerting pressure on the banking institutions in Australia to refrain from sending personal information of customers to the country of a service provider. As ABC Newsonline reports:

...[The Union has] put a message out to shareholders saying that they need to send a clear message to their banks to say that nobody likes jobs going offshore, nobody likes personal data going offshore and that the banks need to change their minds.

Privacy Concerns in Outsourcing

Last month, I had written an interesting post titled "Data Security Tightened in India" that spoke about data security in India. Today, it's the turn of privacy concerns. Privacy concerns have been raised by the financial service companies while sending customer data to foreign countries.

Financial customers may not opt out of these information transfers to non-affiliated service providers if the transfer is for purpose described in section 502(e) of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). The opportunity to opt out does not apply where the information transfer is to service or process a financial product or service that the customer requested or authorized.

The GLBA does provide important protections that cover both domestic and offshore outsourcing. GLBA established affirmative and continuing obligations for financial institutions to respect customer privacy and protect customer personal information against threats to its security, confidentiality and integrity.

The security glitch plagues IT outsourcing

When we talk about IT outsourcing, we essentially talk about huge databases that are confidential and well protected by vendors. However, as I mentioned in an earlier post on this forum, security is emerging as a major concern for outsourcers. In spite of the tacit understanding between vendor and outsourcer that data is confidential, sensitive information has managed to trickle out, beating all security precautions.

The threat to security in outsourcing is a global phenomenon. It has happened in India, and it is happening elsewhere, although the implications are slightly different. Take, for instance, the high-profile outsourcing agreement between Westpac Bank and IBM GSA. Westpac is regretting the fact that it outsourced its security as part of the 10-year, $4.3 billion IT outsourcing pact.

As a result of outsourcing its security management back in 2000, Westpac was left with only one on-house person for information security at the bank. It is only in the last three years that Westpac is beginning to get a grip on the situation. However, it will take much longer for the bank to get rid of the damage to its reputation. As Westpac's chief information security officer and CIO of enterprise services David Backley says:

If cybercrime and other forms of fraud erode trust where will we go? We do not want a loss of confidence in new banking channels.

IBM, your comments, please!

Computerworld has the full story. 

Data Security Tightened in India

Recently, I had written a post on how offshore clients were losing trust on Indian BPOs because of cases of security breach. The post was titled, “Is the Future of BPO Industry Secure in India?” Now it seems that India outsourcing industry has woken up to the gravity of the situation.

After the recent incidents of data theft at call centers, finally the Indian outsourcing industry joined forces to implement a number of security measures. The industry acknowledged that such incidents would undermine the outsourcing expansion in India. The BPO firms in India have initiated a voluntary registry for call center employees. That will help employers to perform background checks on prospective employees.

In a major development, an independent self-regulatory body under the aegis of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) was created. The body will look after the problems facing by BPO industry and find solutions to resolve those.

Data security and privacy have been seen as major barriers to global trade. Outsourcing companies in India are aware of this. Hence, they are trying to improve the security in their organizations. What do you think about the security measures taken by Indian outsourcing industry? Will it help the industry to restore the faith of offshore clients?

Is the Future of BPO Industry Secure in India?

The issue seems to be controversial, yet sensitive. Answer to this question will determine the fate of millions of youngsters in India who opt call center jobs as their career. The arrest of Nadeem Kashmiri in the HSBC call center fraud has raised a big question mark on the reliability and security of Indian BPO industry. Sadly, this is not the single incident of security breach in call centers. In the past couple of years, several cases of data fraud have been reported in call center facilities in Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bangalore.

We admit or not, such incidents are bound to affect the booming BPO industry in India. Experts believe that cases of security breach in India are minimal as compared to that abroad. However, here the question is why should not we provide hundred percent secure services to our foreign clients who heavily rely on us for the efficiency and effectiveness of their processes?

IT Security Outsourcing

The US companies that outsource their IT security functions, has significantly contributed to the volume of off-shoring business. A survey conducted on the US companies indicated that they allocate their security functions to third party companies. The amount of work sent overseas in some cases have doubled in recent years.

It has been reported that companies with an average revenue of less than $10 million outsourced 8 percent of their security functions overseas. Last year, it was only 4 percent. Large companies have witnessed a sharp increase in outsourcing. They send 15 percent of their security functions offshore. Even though the volume of security functions sent overseas moved up, the number of US companies that use outsourcing has remained stable.

According to ZNet News -

This year, 39 percent of the companies surveyed indicated they farm out varying degrees of their security work, compared with 37 percent last year. In a preview of the survey last month, Robert Richardson, editorial director at the CSI, also noted that there was a decline in financial losses due to cyber crime in 2006 and fewer security incidents than in previous years.