Readers, it has finally happened. The Round-Up has now got sufficient evidence to show it might not be the infallible journalistic entity you all thought it was. I must apologise, profusely, for an inaccuracy that was published in last week’s news Round-Up. Thanks to Brian Daly at Unisys, we at sourcingfocus.com are able to right that wrong. When the Round-Up wrote about the Landis+Gyr ITO contract with Unisys last week, I also reported about 1,300 jobs that were cut on Monday. This, however, is where the inaccuracy lies. Mr Daly aptly notified sourcingfocus.com that the job loses had indeed happened five months before, in December, and not that Monday. For this inaccuracy, the Round-Up is extremely sorry. At sourcingfocus.com we appreciate, and in some cases, rely on our reader’s comments and input. After all, as the Round-Up has only recently recognised, no one is perfect.

Apart from the woe of recognising my fallibility, I have been consumed this week with interest in Research and Marketing’s recent report, ‘e-learning Outsourcing 2009: Advantage India’. It seems the outsourcing community can now add another string to its bow. The report explains how, in recent times, corporations, educational institutions and governments have started re-examining the way training and education are imparted. e-learning has now become a crucial part of their strategy to deliver knowledge. But maintaining e-learning systems within the organisation equals more costs. The solution? Outsource, and don’t look back – more international organisations, realising cost advantages, are moving from dealing with local e-learning service providers to directly approaching Indian companies. And yes, surprise, surprise this report does highlight India’s capabilities in e-learning outsourcing.

According to the article, revenues from the Indian e-learning offshoring industry stand at approximately $341 million at the end of calendar year 2008. While the economic recession will impact the growth in the industry for the next 6-8 quarters, the market will recoup and grow much faster, until 2012. The report estimates the market size will reach $603 million by the end of calendar year 2012. There is just no stopping them!

We all know that India is more than proficient in the outsourcing sphere. This report highlights just another example of this. It also seems the recent elections in the country will serve to increase India’s economic growth. As Hamish McRae wrote in the Independent this week, ‘It won’t just be Land Rover and Jaguar that will be rescued by an Indian company; the direct influence of its economic power will go far beyond the odd takeover’.

That said this weeks sourcingfocus.com’s news has seemed to state otherwise. A.T Kearny, a global management consultancy firm, has released a paper that asserts that deteriorating cost advantages and improved labour quality are driving a dramatic shift in the geography of offshoring.

It’s certainly a confusing world out there. It just shows that you need a great news source like sourcingfocus.com to make sense of it all (last weeks’ error aside).

While India, China and Malaysia retain the top three spots they’ve occupied since the inaugural GSLI in 2004, a fundamental shift in the index has taken place as once strong Central European countries have yielded ground to countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The GSLI analyses and ranks the top 50 countries worldwide for locating outsourcing activities, including IT services and support, contact centres and back-office support. Each country’s score is composed of a weighted combination of relative scores on 43 measurements, which are grouped into three categories: financial attractiveness, people and skills availability and business environment.

My memory does serve me well enough to remember that last week, I too was hinting at the demise of the Indian outsourcing empire. Not sure where I stand now…all those mixed messages!

I think sourcingfocus.com has confused us all enough for one week. On to more concrete news items. MTV has signed up HCL to be its digital platform development partner.

The partnership aims to help MTVN brands manage the technology behind its digital content creation, media asset management, community networking and cross-brand programming. No confusion there then.

Another new contract has come in the shape of Unisys and TravelSky. TravelSky, a provider of information technology solutions for China’s air travel and tourism industry, has extended its licences with Unisys China for Unisys server technology through to December 2011.

TravelSky Vice President, Mr. Rong Gong, commented, “This supports our aim to make TravelSky one of the most reliable travel systems in the world while satisfying the ever-increasing growth of China’s aviation market.”

Let’s just hope those are green electric planes for all our sakes.

Amid the latest ‘dramatic shift in the shape of global offshoring’ that outsourcing advisors are all too ready to predict, it may be time for a rest. A little time to mull it all over, thank goodness it’s the weekend…