IT outsourcing in the Caribbean

Thursday, September 18, 2003

NEW YORK, New York: Outsourcing companies from all over the world gathered this week for OutsourceWorld, being held as part of the annual TechXNY/PC Expo show in New York, including some from the Caribbean.

According to Computerworld, companies considering offshore outsourcing for some of their IT work have typically looked to India for services. But that is slowly changing, as several relative newcomers, including the Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada, are now working to persuade companies from the U.S. and other countries to send their business overseas. 

Some companies offer a combined approach, with management offices in North America and the actual outsourcing operations in other countries. 

Ron Johnson, president of BPM Outsourcing in Toronto, provides business process management outsourcing to clients from the company's operations in St. George, Grenada. By being in Canada, services cost less than U.S. prices to start, and the company is able to offer additional savings from being in Grenada, where Johnson has about 150 workers. 

Accelerated Computer Technologies Inc. in Pompano Beach, Fla., offers management from the U.S. and services offshore in the Dominican Republic. And by being close to the U.S. mainland, business communications are simplified. "You have to be able to talk to people on your clients' business hours," said Vice President Brian Javeline. 

Trinidad and Tobago is another one of the dozens of smaller countries eager to cash in on U.S. information technology companies' quest for lower wages. At its booth at the OutsourceWorld Conference, one of the country's representatives Lynn Waldron said, "It's not really promoted itself for anything except oil. I'm not sure many Americans even know where it is." 

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