With so many U.S. IT professionals out of work today, nothing rankles those masses like the mention of overseas outsourcing. This week’s Management Strategies story examines the concept, one that many U.S. corporations are turning to to stay profitable.

Recently IBM execs have considered moving IT jobs out of the U.S., causing quite the controversy. Yet our author notes that IBM is hardly alone in that consideration or practice. Research consultancy Gartner Group notes that by 2004 more than 80% of all U.S. companies will have considered shifting U.S. IT jobs overseas, while 40% of all U.S. organizations will have completed some type of pilot or will obtain IT services from non-U.S.-based service providers.

And, unfortunately for American IT workers, the more outside countries are engaged in working with U.S. corporations, the better they get at it, encouraging the practice all the more.

Canada, India and the Philippines are three good places for service providers offering network management outsourcing, according to Gartner. The countries have large groups of highly trained workers, modern telecom infrastructures and are likely to be able to make the required capital investment in building network management centers.

Countries such as Russia, which doesn’t have the infrastructure to support overseas work like those mentioned above, focus on niche markets. Russia has hosts of scientists and mathematicians who can solve large-scale, complex technical problems.

Check out this week’s Management Strategies story in its entirety for detailed information which countries are hot outsourcing areas, and details regarding their specialties and challenges: http://www.nwfusion.com/careers/2003/0825man.html