Outsourcing: Blanca Trevino, CEO of Softtek (Part 2)

SM: Actually, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) has set up a major Latin America operation.

BT: They do. TCS probably is the Indian vendor that has the largest call center here in Latin America. They do have a strong presence in Brazil, and from Brazil, they support global clients. They won, a couple of years ago, some government projects here in Mexico. I don’t believe they’re working for the government here anymore. But I think – as opposed to what other Indian vendors look at when they look at Latin America – TCS was looking at the region not just to offer service from the region but also looking at the Latin American market. >>>

Outsourcing: Blanca Trevino, CEO of Softtek (Part 1)

Softtek is global company that provides its clients, which comprise top-tier corporations, with process-driven IT solutions. The company has office locations in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. The world has Softtek to thank for the creation of nearshoring, which involves companies outsourcing tasks to other companies that are located in nearby countries or accepting outsourced work from companies in nearby locations i.e., a U.S.-based company outsourcing its customer service responsibilities to a call center in Mexico or Brazil or vice versa.

Sramana Mitra: Hi Blanca. Let’s start with some context of your company. When did you get started? What kind of circumstances got you going, and what are you doing today? >>>

Outsourcing: Brad Heath, CEO of VirTex Assembly Services (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Would you talk a bit about the logistics challenges in shipping and so forth? Of course, there are energy prices and everything, but how has that changed? At some point, it made a lot of sense to manufacture everything in a local destination, and the logistics and shipping charges were not exactly big factors, but they seem to be becoming bigger factors. Would you talk a bit about the trends on the logistics side?

Brad Heath: I can talk to that to the extent that we see that. Obviously, we don’t see much of that in the high-mix, low-volume arena as you would in the high volume, but the piece we see that matters is the piece of, How long do you tie up in supply chain? If you have your supply chain all coming out of Asia and coming to the U.S., you tie up your money from the time that you initially wire the money to place the order, through the lead time of material, through the time of manufacture through the time of transit. That also precludes you from making a lot of changes to your design during that period. So, that logistics time greatly limits your flexibility in terms of what you can order, what you can change, and what you can improve or reduce the cost of in your product. >>>

Outsourcing: Brad Heath, CEO of VirTex Assembly Services (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Is Mexico the only Latin American country that is coming up in that near shoring trend?

Brad Heath: No. It’s the only one that we’re dealing with, but you’ve got stuff happening down in Brazil. You’ve got a number of others.

SM: Brazil is not easy to get to at all.

BH: It’s not easy to get to, but for the stuff that they’re trying to sell in that region … that’s one of the directions I think a lot of contract manufacturers as well as captive manufacturers are doing. They’re trying to build a product where the market for that product is. >>>

Outsourcing: Brad Heath, CEO of VirTex Assembly Services (Part 2)

SM: What are the repercussions of that?

BH: Well, we go ahead and work with our supply chain in the same manner, to minimize our risk and our liability. So, we’re not taking any risks that our customers aren’t taking, but we’re working with our supply chain to minimize that risk for our customers. There are certain things that if you buy them, you have to take them, and there are certain things that you don’t. If we can go ahead and get forecasted information, have that through a managed inventory programs with our supplier partners, we can minimize that risk for our customers.

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Outsourcing: Brad Heath, CEO of VirTex Assembly Services (Part 1)

We often talk about how much technology has done to make our lives easier and our workflows faster. When we do, we aren’t usually thinking about the ways that Austin, Texas–based VirTex uses technology to make their customers’ lives easier. From RFID tags to medical training equipment to solar power monitoring, VirTex manufactures all kinds of things, even equipment that help farmers operate at lower costs. Although the company is based in the United States and has a U.S.-based clientele, it ships products all over world.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Brad. Let’s start with some context about you and your company. Where are you located? How long have you been around? What is your business, what is the scale, and so forth? >>>

Outsourcing: LN Balaji, President of ITC Infotech (Part 6)

Sramana Motra: If you want to build an operation in Mississippi, you can do that. You can build something – you’re already doing something – in Arkansas. You can do it in Vermont. You can do it in all sorts of low-cost United States regions. We’re seeing that. We’re also seeing Latin America, big time.

LN Balaji: Yes, because of the time zone. We have two issues over there. One, we’re investing heavily in Spanish-language capability because that is needed if you have to work in most parts of Latin America, barring Brazil, but especially in Mexico. But talent is still an issue. That’s been our experience. What is your view of the economics of a low-cost U.S. location vis-à-vis an Indian or an Eastern European one? We don’t have any operations in Eastern Europe. >>>

Outsourcing: LN Balaji, President of ITC Infotech (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Because of the analytics talent?

LN Balaji: Yes, it’s a little bit high end. You don’t have to be high end all the time. When it was developed, we did it that way, and we did it out of Calcutta. This is maybe a five- or seven-year-old engagement. We still maintain it out of our development center in Calcutta.

SM: Are there any other hot buttons or core competencies in Calcutta, besides analytics? >>>