The world is currently witnessing a fundamental reorganization in the way services are delivered to customers. This is what is behind the movement to outsource. It’s a lot more than just saving money by shipping jobs overseas. Harvard Business Professor Robert E. Kennedy, call this the “Services Shift”. The globalization of services, in which different tasks are being carried out by different individuals in different locations, is about gaining access to the best combination of talent, resources and markets.

I bring this up because I recently blogged about Medical Transcription work being done in the Philippines. I came across a blog sharing some of the opportunities for nursing graduates in the Philippines to consider a career as an MT for a BPO company. The blog was not the most well written one, but it captured the sense of optimism for those looking for work in a way that perhaps before they had not considered. That really appealed to me so I used it in my blog.

I expected to get some negative reaction, because MT work is one of the areas of employment in the US that has been significantly impacted by the outsourcing of work overseas. MT work is not easy, and those that do it wherever they are employed requires a lot of skill, training and diligence. I see that with the team I’ve been working here in the Philippines. However, in my efforts to share that good story, I ended up also upsetting some hard-working Americans who have seen MT opportunities go abroad. And that made me think of this book the “Services Shift”.

Kennedy quotes several factors that are at play when industries are “outsourced”, they are:
* Technological Innovations like easy access to the internet and stored data.
* Emerging Market Growth in traditionally closed markets
* Global Macroeconomic Liberalization of government polices toward trade
* The Corporate Imperative to both reduce costs and improve quality
* The Convergence of a Global Business Culture based on the English language and American business models.

Given these factors, its easy to see how countries like India and the Philippines have taken advantage of situation and offered MT services as an outsourcing option. To that end I am working with a Philippines based company that is offering it MT and Coding services to companies in the U.S. I have made the choice to build my business on being part of the “Services Shift” and I am looking for like-minded people who see the opportunity to collaborate and find ways to take advantage of their experience and use it in a global partnership.