This week has been a tumultuous one for politics and outsourcing alike. The BNP were invited on the BBC’s Question Time for the first time ever, as a result of it’s European election win, whilst ITV’s Tonight program investigated the sale of British medical records offshore in India. All of this has put, race, culture and immigration on the political agenda. Whist this could have numerous benefits, it does inevitably put the image of the foreign ‘Other’ in the media. This poses the question: What effect will this have on outsourcing, and in particular offshoring?

In respect to Monday night’s ITV investigative reporting show Tonight, the NOA Offshoring Director, Mark Kobayashi Hillary, aimed to set the record straight by insisting the expose was a data issue not an outsourcing issue. He commented “It’s useful for programmes like Tonight to be exposing these crimes, but not to disparage a largely trusted and successful outsourcing and offshoring industry. It’s important that this is understood to be a data crime, not an offshoring crime.” Hopefully the programme will not have harmed the hard the already perilous reputation of offshoring. No one wants to hear more of the protectionist sentiment that has played the media year.

On the issue of Britain, racist politics and how this will impact offshoring, the effects remain to be seen. The UK media has chastised the BNP leader and have described his views as unacceptable, unlawful, and more poignantly, un-British. The Round-Up can only hope that the BNP leader’s lack of support from the British public will translate in the way the UK continues to conduct its sourcing business.

It is also encouraging to see new outsourcing deals are coming thick and fast into sourcingfocus.com’s mailbox.

Simmons & Simmons, an international law firm announced a 12 month agreement with Integreon to provide legal process outsourcing. This is an outsourcing agreement that sees Integreon supporting the legal firm from its facilities in Mumbai (India).

There was also a deal struck this week between the City of Santa Clara and Unisys. The world-wide company will provide information technology and application outsourcing services to the Californian city. The five-year contract has an estimated value of approximately $20 million. Under the contract, Unisys will provide a full range of IT management and support and application services for the city government.

So far, so good, as far as offshoring and outsourcing goes. Let’s hope it continues to go from strength to strength, despite the ramblings of some how misguided politicians.