South African-based integration and outsourcing company, Logikal Consulting, has spread its wings to India, opening a number of branches in the Asian country.

In a statement, Logikal Consulting says, in this day and age, where IT has become the backbone of businesses worldwide, outsourcing has become big business, with countries like China, India and the Philippines becoming international outsourcing hubs.

However, this global business trend is often seen as providing lower-quality service, or even as running sweat shops in low-cost countries and exploiting labour in these countries to reap maximum profit from poor workers.

In fact, the reality is markedly different, says Gerald Naidoo, Logikal`s CEO, with outsourcing providing benefits to the outsourcing company and the service provider, as well as its employees.

“In order to be competitive globally these days, businesses have to look at outsourcing. The outsourcer reduces costs and increases quality in non-core areas of business and utilises his expertise and competencies to the maximum, since the service companies provide services at lower prices than the client companies can [if they] do the work in-house,” Naidoo explains.

During the course of its operations in India, which boasts a number of branches, the company says it has established a unique environment, one which it is now going to use to its full potential by offering outsourced solutions to its customers across Africa.

“Very few systems integration firms are Africa-focused, and we decided to leverage our expertise in providing this much-needed service,” Naidoo says.

“We offer security and specialised proficiency with products like SAP and Oracle. We will therefore be offering SAP testing in addition to standard systems integration, as well as Oracle infrastructure services.”

According to Naidoo, outsourcing is neither the “cure-all” it has been portrayed by business nor the economy-destroying monster people claim it to be.

“Outsourcing is not necessarily a panacea for all of a company`s cost issues and strategies. It boils down to whether it aligns with the company`s business objectives and meeting its customers` needs. It also depends on whether companies are ready to take on outsourcing as part of their operating models,” he says.

“In addition, the debate about jobs has been vastly overblown. In the US – one of the largest outsourcers in the world – the `mass layoffs` claimed to outsourcing were only 4% in reality.”

He adds that although outsourcing does eliminate certain jobs, it also yields important benefits to the economy by encouraging a more sophisticated infrastructure setup.

“In order to achieve the desired results and benefits from outsourcing, companies will still require an educated local team to manage the project. Outsourcing makes good business sense. Specialised companies provide their services at costs that improve the client`s bottom line, so both companies, the service provider and the client, profit from the arrangement.”

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