Media outsourcing attracts ire of US anti-offshoring brigade

[OhioChick]

Bangalore June 03, 2008, 0:07 IST

Print media outsourcing may well become the next bugbear for the US anti-outsourcing brigade. For instance, a digital advertising contract between India's second largest IT services provider Infosys Technologies and a major American newspaper group is threatening to become a rallying point for the brigade to regroup and renew attacks on outsourcing of management information systems (MIS) and key operations-related work to India.

Infosys Technologies, according to sources, signed an advertising outsourcing deal with Missouri-based Kansas City Star sometime last month. The daily, a part of the McClatchy Company that also publishes the Miami Herald, will outsource advertising production work for its new media/digital business to Bangalore.

An industry source claimed that City Star would be outsourcing its entire digital advertising team to Infosys. "While the deal is not substantial in terms of payback, over the next three to five years, City Star has been looking at gaining the economy of scale in its production set-up over the past year by outsourcing digital media production across a few of its publications to different vendors," the source said.

On the daily's website, City Star President and Publisher Mark Zieman said the move is expected to reduce the number of employees in the newspaper's advertising services department by up to nine.


http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=324841&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=