The outsourcing
of in-house business operations has existed long before the advent of
globalization in the 19th century, but the more recent offshore outsourcing stories are the
ones we remember today: cultural
imperialism in Indian call centers, garment
sweatshop still prevalent all over the world and suicide after suicide at
Foxconn in Shenzhen. But within today’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
industry, knowledge, legal and particularly information technology-based
business outsourcing have taken center stage. Not surprisingly, high and
growing technology penetration rates in the Global South have not gone
unnoticed among socially minded enterprises and the international development
sector—which brings us to the ICT4D version of BPO: Impact Sourcing or
“microwork.”
