By Patrick Heffernan and Geoff Woollacott
TBR research has recently found evidence to suggest rapidly accelerating pricing pressures are seriously impacting professional services firms lacking global scale. Specifically, global delivery models that includes the labor categories of onshore resource, landed onshore resource, and remote or offshore resource will undergo a fundamental shift, as countries that were early offshore hubs transform into local services arms delivering in-country expertise around IT transformation and implementation deals.
Latin America’s Poor Record on University Investment Begins to Reveal Serious Outcomes
May 21st, 2013
IBM recruiter Laird says private training is often the best substitute
By Clayton Browne
Rapid economic growth throughout Latin America has created a situation where the educational systems in the region simply cannot produce enough people with the required skills to meet expanding demand. At a time when Latin America continues to edge closer to making meaningful contributions to the global workplace, intense debates are taking place across the region about the shortcomings of university educations – from the rigor needed in science and technology education to mastery of foreign languages.
redIT Opens Data Center in Mexico City
May 8th, 2013By Narayan Ammachchi
redIT has launched a data center in Tultitlán area of Mexico City, as the IT infrastructure service provider looks to tap into a growing demand for IT services in the Latin American country.
The 95,000-square-foot data center is designed to house eight PODs and will serve mainly government institutions.
redIT said the new facility aims to meet existing demand for data center services in Mexico City.
The data center is located close to a substation of the Federal Electricity Commission.
“Our presence in Phoenix resides at the largest Tier III facility in Arizona. And our expanding core of data centers in Mexico is second to none,” says the company in its website.
With eight data centers located in the Southwestern U.S. and Latin America, redIT is one of very few companies with dedicated international connectivity and modern, modular data center technology. Last year, the company’s client base grew by 16 …
Rising Wages and Inflation Damage the Luster of Costa Rica
April 23rd, 2013
Stream’s Salazar: “Almost impossible” finding talent at right price
Out of nowhere, Costa Rica is described as “another Puerto Rico”
By Narayan Ammachchi
Rising wages and inflation are threatening to undermine Costa Rica’s outsourcing sector, with several outsourcing firms scaling down operation and fleeing to cheaper locations. Costa Rica has the highest rate of inflation in all of Central America and the country’s currency Colon too has continued to rise against the US dollar. Inflation in February was 6.52 percent, the highest since 2009 and beyond the central bank’s target of 5 percent, according to Bloomberg.
IBM Goes South: Opens Delivery Center in Baton Rouge
April 10th, 2013By Eric Hochstein
In what is described as the largest deal of its kind in the history of Louisiana, IBM has announced plans to open an 800-person operation in Baton Rouge for software development and services maintenance.
Reports say the technology giant finally chose Baton Rouge after a two year search. The deal forges a unique public-private partnership to develop a new, state-of-the-art delivery center and a riverfront residential-office complex.
Under the agreement, the state will fund expansion of the computer sciences department at Louisiana State University (in Baton Rouge), adding new faculty and classes, and enrolling more students, in order to meet the demands of the world’s largest technology services provider.
IBM will use the facility to deliver a range of software services, including application development, application management and system integration.
IBM is just the latest to announce investment in U.S. domestic outsourcing sector. Canada’s CGI, and U.S.-based companies including Ameritas …
By Eric Hochstein
Last spring, Stephanie Moore was busy working as a Forrester Research analyst on Sourcing and Vendor Management, advising companies on outsourcing and offshoring strategies. Today, from the opposite vantage point, the former pundit is now President of Ameritas Technologies, a fledgling startup that delivers outsourced services from domestic centers, bucking the offshore trend that she so heavily engaged in just a few years ago.
IBM Opens Seventh Office in Mexico, By Targeting the Yucatan
March 27th, 2013By Narayan Ammachchi
IBM has opened one more office in Mexico as the U.S. technology giant intensifies its efforts to tap into a growing demand for intelligent solutions in the Mexican corporate sector.
The new office crops up in Mérida, the largest population center in the Mexico’s Southeastern region. Banorte-Ixe, Mexico’s third largest bank, has recently signed a ten-year US$1billion contract with IBM Global Business Services.
Located in the center of Yucatán metropolitan zone, the Mérida office represents an investment of approximately US$ 4 million and becomes IBM’s seventh office in the country after those in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Querétaro, Toluca and Puebla.
IBM says it will use the new office for selling technology solutions in the areas of cloud computing, business analytics, mobile and social computing.
“With the opening of the Mérida office, IBM reaffirms its long-term commitment to a growing number of clients and business partners who will …
By Lindy Hanson & Geoff Woollacott
Investments in IP-based delivery and platforms will enable traditional services firms to break the link between revenue and headcount growth and result in a net improvement in positioning of “India-centric’ outsourcing providers, according to new findings from Technology Business Research. The break in this linear equation will result from monetizing IP and represents an opportunity for professional services firms to increase margins that can drive bottom-line improvement and free up budget dollars for investments in cost of services, R&D and SG&A functions.
IBM Wins $1 Billion Contract with Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Banorte
March 13th, 2013By Luke Bujarski
Banorte-Ixe, Mexico’s third largest bank has signed a ten-year, US$1billion contract with IBM Global Business Services, encompassing a total overhaul of its customer facing and back end systems. “This is unlike any partnership that exists in Latin America’s financial services industry today,” explained Rafael Arana de la Garza, General Director of Planning and Finance of Banorte, in an interview with Nearshore Americas.
Nearshore Data Centers in a State of ‘Radical Evolution’
February 25th, 2013
Rocha of Unisys warns about risks of cut-rate pricing
By James Bargent
There are few IT sectors growing as quickly as Latin America’s soon-to-be-worth $3 billion data center market. Last year alone, the rush to provide server space for the region’s burgeoning IT requirements saw tech giants IBM and Google invest in multi-million dollar Latin American data centers, while more new centers sprung up everywhere from Zona Franca business parks in Panama to mountain-top terraces on Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela.
