But recent results show that not all outsourcing firms are cut from the same cloth.
As firms increase production, they are expanding through contracts with outsourcing firms rather than permanent recruitment.
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In return, Indian customers allow outsourcing firms greater leeway in how they meet their commitments.
He told the committee that Indian outsourcing firms must "evolve their business models" by hiring more Americans.
Indian outsourcing firms argue that using their services is also beneficial because it increases the layers of scrutiny.
The move is creating a new revenue stream for such Indian outsourcing firms as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
The result should be continued strong growth for Congizant and other outsourcing firms.
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And many firms for routine tasks now use less-expensive alternatives to young associates, such as contract attorneys and outsourcing firms.
She found herself competing for jobs with employees of outsourcing firms brought over from India on temporary visas, such as the H-1B.
The big IT and outsourcing firms have to invest more and more in teaching graduates what they should have learnt in college.
Indian IT outsourcing firms, says Patnaik, are also vulnerable to siloed thinking.
Crowdsourcing is generally cheaper and faster than hiring temps and can cost companies less than half as much as more traditional outsourcing firms.
"Most of the work we do would otherwise go to large, for-profit outsourcing firms in big cities in India and China, " she says.
In theory, the outsourcing firms like Hudson Legal include overhead in what they charge plaintiff firms for their lawyers, meaning they should just pass through those charges to their shareholder clients, instead of marking them up.
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Competition among the outsourcing IT firms is seen getting fiercer, too, in India.
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Outsourcing is the topic of this article, in particular outsourcing to firms that use maquiladora production ie, manufacturing in Mexican border towns, for re-export to America.
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It has thrived on the outsourcing by car firms of complex components and on the burgeoning demand for four-wheel-drive transmissions.
Among the many things that surprised Michael Jordan when he arrived at troubled tech giant EDS last year was a deep and puzzling irony: EDS invented the business of outsourcing, overhauling other firms' computer systems and running them far more efficiently, yet its own internal network was a haphazard and disjointed mess.
Outsourcing will affect American legal firms the most, because they cost the most.
According to research done in conjunction with the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards, 43% of corporations and 72% of surveyed law firms were currently outsourcing, planned to in the future or were open to the possibility.
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Outsourcing, long practised by American firms, is spreading to Europe as businesses cut costs.
In particular, legal-process outsourcing is booming, as law firms parcel out some of their more basic work to reduce costs.
Rather than purchasing the tools and manpower needed to run their companies, more small firms are renting, sharing or outsourcing resources, typically through online services, according to Steve King, a partner at Emergent Research, a research and consulting firm for small businesses.
With money tight, police forces are outsourcing tasks including criminal-case preparation to private firms.
Obelisk works as a legal outsourcing company, taking on support work for law firms and in-house legal departments.
So will mass-market law firms, which will make use of outsourcing.
In August even Mr Schumer, needing to look tough on outsourcing, pushed through a bill sharply raising H-1B fees on firms that depend heavily on the visas.
Only 3% of corporations and 11% of law firms identify the quality of work as their main barrier to outsourcing legal services, an extraordinary decline from the past.
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Many of the contract attorneys worked for Hudson Legal, an outsourcing firm that provides workspace, pay and benefits to lawyers and charges firms like Kirby McInerney a slight premium over the hourly rate to cover overhead.
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