UK Top Talent can’t Compete with Globalisation
Globalisation means that in many ways it’s easier to have technology designed in India, Far Eastern manufacturing products produced in China and labour from Eastern Europe to undertake the jobs those in the UK don’t want to do.
Indeed, for some time it’s been possible to give “a brief” for artwork for an online brochure at 3pm one afternoon and wake up the following morning for the brochure to be already uploaded onto a professionally produced new website that had been designed and placed on the net and is ready to take orders online.
And all of this for one sixth of the cost you would pay in the UK!
So has or will UK Talent and many businesses price themselves out of the marketplace?
Whether or not people price themselves out of the market depends very much on what they do and how easily replicable their expertise is. My work requires a lot of hands on work with clients and I have built my own credibility in a niche market.
However, having just commissioned a new website, we were left with little choice but to go to India. There was a UK company whose work we like but we would have been left paying more than twice as much.
Yes, there will be (increasing) price pressure on service providers in UK due to ease of shipping work out electronically to countries like India. While the first reason why work is shipped out is cost, other advantages like Quality, Delivery, Service and Value Addition are the main reasons for further outsourcing. The same price pressure will be there for shipping out products to be manufactured, or for that matter anything that does not require a very high level of direct customer contact.
This is true across sectors, from the simple to the complex. I am quoting a few costs from people I know for you to understand the implication:
A root canal treatment at a quality hospital by well qualified doctors in India costs $90, and a knee joint replacement $4500. Add the cost of travel to India, Visas, Hotels, and a zero waiting period for any surgery, and you can see how much you can save.
A high quality 30 page website costs $750. A management consultant charges under $200 a day for business strategy. A 500 ml bottle of Coke sells for $0.50, and you can have a good hot healthy balanced 5-course meal in a clean restaurant for even $0.5. An international call to UK from India costs less than 8 pence.
The way out is perhaps:
1. move across the value chain, and offer something that needs a very high level of client contact, and
2. if you cant beat them, join them: UK businesses should get contracts, and then outsource work to cost-effective countries and pass on most of the savings to their customers.
Best Regards,
Sancoale Technologies
Consulting. Design. Marketing.
Lalit
I agree with all of your points. Even more when you consider that countries all over the world are now in a position to advertise such services in Europe and America and that companies will be set up to facilitate such visits for medical treatement of liason for business services.
What is frightening is that the UK seems oblivious to the consequences for its own business economy