A monumental shift in how Western corporations tap into Indian talent is taking place. Companies are moving away from running their own offshoring operations and handing at least some of those jobs to Indian tech-services specialists.
The most recent sign of the sea change came July 10, when British insurance giant Aviva (AV) said it sold a 5,000-strong South Asian outsourcing operation to WNS Global Services (WNS) of Mumbai. WNS paid $228 million for these so-called captive operations in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, and Colombo, Sri Lanka. In return, Aviva agreed to pay up to $1 billion to WNS over more than eight years for handling customer service, account setup, accounting, and claims processing.
