Analyst: Outsourcing can save costs in health care
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BALTIMORE - Health care organizations not considering offshore outsourcing are missing out on significant cost savings, but administrators need to be aware of potential risks, including lax handling of data security by some vendors and the effect on employee morale, a health care IT analyst said Tuesday.
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Close on the heels of the&#160;appreciation of the Indian rupee against the dollar, Indian outsourcing companies are grappling with a new problem -- uncertainty among U.S. companies about a recession has made these companies delay finalizing their IT budgets.As a result many large deals between U.S. clients and Indian outsourcers will not be finalized in the first half of this year, said Sudin Apte, senior analyst and country head for India at Forrester Research.Business will however pick up for Indian outsourcers by the fourth quarter, particularly if the U.S. economy is in mild recession, Apte said.&quot;Our experience is that if the IT budgets of U.S. customers are marginally impacted in a recession, then there is an increase in business offshore, to cut costs,&quot; Apte said. If the cuts are too large, whole projects can however get canned, he warned.The U.S. is the largest market for Indian outsourcers.&quot;We believe that the recessionary nature of today&#39;s economic climate will promote the adoption of increased outsourcing,&quot; said Siddharth Pai, a partner at outsourcing consultancy firm, Technology Partners International Inc. (TPI) in Houston, Texas.TPI does not as yet see a cut in either discretionary or non-discretionary spending on IT by companies.Forrester said Monday that the IT services and outsourcing market will increase by 4 percent this year to $162 billion from a growth rate of 6 percent a year earlier.&#160;The research firm forecast slowing growth this year&#160;for purchases of IT products and services in the U.S.National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), a trade organization in Delhi, however remains optimistic about the growth of India&#39;s outsourcing industry. The industry is optimistic of achieving its target of $60 billion in software and services exports by March, 2010, the association said Monday.In the fiscal year to March 31, the industry expects export revenues of $40.3 billion, up by 29 percent from export revenue in the previous year.Problems for India&#39;s outsourcing industry could get however compounded as its customers abroad have seen a drop in overall satisfaction and a drop in value for money from offshore outsourcing to India, according to a Forrester survey. India is still preferred as an offshore destination because it is the only country where foreign companies can&#160;hire staff in the thousands, Apte said.
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he cost of providing health care to employees has risen 11.2 percent this year, according to the results of an authoritative national survey reported yesterday.
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TORONTO (CP) - Downsizing strategies implemented by governments and companies alike in the 1990s have burdened Canada&#39;s health-care system with up to $14 billion a year in additional costs, a new federal study concludes.
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Who would have expected this upside to costly medical procedures?
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The past few years have seen companies doing everything they can to reduce costs. From outsourcing and offshoring to RIFs (reductions in force), the byword has been, âCut expenses.â But if most of the economists are right, 2005 will be a much better year, and companies will go back to concentrating on increasing revenue.
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Economic uncertainty prompts companies to delay contracts, but may soon benefit outsource services.
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The traditional competition for U.S. offshore outsourcing business was between nations. That's about to change, according to a new study.
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Automaker could save big if it can agree to a health care trust with its workers.
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OTTAWAâPatients&#39; waiting times and runaway health-care costs could both be reduced by forcing hospitals to compete for government health-care funding, says the latest report on Canada&#39;s medicare system.
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WASHINGTON -- Staying healthy is a costly business in the United States, particularly in the Northeast, government statistics show.
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Infosys Technologies profits from global outsourcing trends.
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OTTAWA - Stress from high workloads is costing Canada&#39;s health-care system up to $14 billion a year in additional costs, according to a new federal study.
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Analyst says that the cost-effectiveness of outsourcing contact centers has not been broadly perfected.
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Elective surgery in India? Medical tourism is booming, and U.S. companies trying to contain health-care costs are starting to take notice
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People in a new kind of health plan that makes consumers pay for a bigger share of their care appear to be more cost-conscious than those in traditional plans, but half say they would switch if they had the chance, according to a survey released yesterday.
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CAMBRIDGE -- At a sponsors' meeting of MIT Sloan School's Center for Information Systems Research this week, there was a new project on the research agenda: outsourcing.