'Offshoring' Can Generate Jobs in the U.S.
By CRAIG KARMIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
[Excerpt:]
Global giants aren't the only companies cutting costs by shifting jobs overseas. Increasingly, small businesses are finding that "offshoring" jobs is a boon to their bottom line -- and sometimes gives them room to create new jobs at home.
For example, when Rajeev Thadani wanted to expand Claimpower Inc., his medical-billing service in Fairlawn, N.J., he chose to outsource some of the work to India. But unlike most companies going this route, his business had just five other employees at the time.
Mr. Thadani, who runs the company with his wife, flew to his native Bombay in 2001 and hired four locals to help file insurance claims on behalf of New Jersey doctors. They use a software system that Mr. Thadani, a programmer by trade, developed specifically for the task.
Today, he employs 35 people there. Since he pays his Indian employees the equivalent of $133 to $663 a month -- quite good by local standards -- he can charge doctors less than his competitors and has more time to offer specialized attention. That has given his business a big lift: In a little more than two years, he says, his client list has soared to 41 doctors from 10, and his firm's annual revenue jumped to $700,000 from $100,000.
Now he's taking steps to expand his business nationally, while planning to add staff in the U.S. In the past, Mr. Thadani relied on referrals from existing customers to get new business. He will soon add a sales team for recruiting clients and hire new managers in the U.S. to work with doctors. Longer term, he hopes to add as many as a dozen U.S. employees, plus 30 or so additional people in India, to help him reach his goal of handling claims for 500 doctors nationwide.
At a time when the U.S. has lost 2.3 million jobs over the past three years, foreign outsourcing -- to India in particular -- is frequently blamed for the jobless economic recovery. But recent employment trends suggest the moves also can trigger the creation of new U.S. jobs...
Continued at online.wsj.com |
