Outsource Your Career

According to today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Indian outsourcers are “poaching” U.S. executives for leadership posts. As an example, the story focuses on Doug Bettinger, a senior finance executive and 12-year veteran of Intel, who joined India’s 24/7Customer late last year. The Journal says financial clout is allowing Indian companies to woo Western executives, and recruiters working for the Indian companies confirm that their clients have to—and do—pay a premium to attract U.S. talent. For their part, Indian businesspeople say these Western executives can help their companies penetrate overseas markets and help put in place systems to manage their growth.

Meanwhile, the February 2005 issue of Washington CEO, a magazine for chief executives in the great Northwest, carries a story called “The Outsourcing Option.” The gist of it? There’s too much money involved for companies to ignore the overseas option. It focuses on the fact that the trend of outsourcing is now hitting jobs in which just a few years ago U.S. workers thought they had an advantage. For more discussion on the effects of that down the road, see the writings of my colleagues Ben Worthen (Flight of the Creative Class) and Chris Koch (Innovation Ships Out).

Another way to look at the high level execs’ moves is they’re outsourcing their own careers…. So, will your boss join the outsourcers if she can’t beat ‘em? Will you?