In short, no.  

In May I wrote about Infosys’ visa woes. Yesterday, an Alabama judge ruled in favor of Infosys in the first of the visa-related whistleblower lawsuits. It is important to note that this lawsuit was not about whether or not Infosys violated any visa laws, it was about whether Infosys retaliated against the plaintiff, Jay Palmer, for reporting visa misuse to executives at Infosys. The judge, Myron H. Thompson, allowed that although Palmer claimed he was mistreated and abused when he filed the internal whistleblower claim, because Palmer was an at-will employee, he, under Alabama law, has very few employee rights. In his decision, the judge referred to an Alabama Supreme Court decision that found, "Absent a contract providing otherwise, an employee may be demoted, denied a promotion, or otherwise adversely treated for any reason, good or bad, or even for no reason at all."

He went on to say, "Without question, the alleged electronic and telephonic threats are deeply troubling. Indeed, an argument could be made that such threats against whistleblowers, in particular, should be illegal. The issue before the court, however, is not whether Alabama should make these alleged wrongs actionable, but whether they are, in fact, illegal under state law. This court cannot rewrite state law."  

Ever since offshore outsourcing became popular, employment visas — specifically the L1 and H1 visa — have been a source of debate. Indian vendors have needed them to make their offshore model work. US technical employees have feared them because they threaten to take away their livelihood.  

Well, here we are in 2012 and the debate is hotter than ever. The offshore vendors, attempting to accommodate tech-savvy clients’ agility and context requirements, require even more staff onsite in the US. Simultaneously, the US government, struggling to combat unemployment, shore up the dwindling middle class, and get through the 2012 election cycle, is cracking down on visa enforcement. For Forrester clients, this situation has become problematic as their vendors fail to land resources for mission-critical projects and the clients themselves are then compelled to use local contractors to fulfill their onsite needs (one reason staff augmentation vendors are seeing a big uptick in growth).

Last Saturday, I moderated a three-person panel at the Syntel annual customer meeting in Charleston, SC. While discussing the business's penchant for going around IT to buy IT solutions and services, an astute panel member and CIO said, “IT doesn’t solve business problems, so shadow IT proliferates.” This CIO has spent the last 18 months “consolidating shadow IT” in order to reduce costs and, perhaps more importantly, deliver solutions to the business more quickly and safely than the business can self-provision. Putting a halt to shadow IT is not to punish anyone or to reduce anyone’s power; it is to help the business innovate and grow. Not surprisingly, the key to this consolidation has been establishing a project management office (PMO) comprised of business analysts and project managers who are responsible for understanding business requirements and then developing and delivering solutions to meet those requirements as quickly as possible, using internal staff or third-party consultants or cloud solutions. While the consolidation is still underway, business leaders at this company are already beginning to view this as a value-added service rather than a punishment.

I am very excited to be back at Forrester. After 2 years of being immersed in the customer experience, I can’t wait to share new insights and advice with both Sourcing and Vendor Management (SVM) clients and the vendors that service those clients.  Together we can watch as the consulting and outsourcing market faces yet another tipping point driven by:

·         The increasing sophistication of the Sourcing and Vendor Management executive.

·         The expanding “cloud “and the need for service aggregation and integration.

·         The democratization or consumerization of technology (if users can buy an application for 99 cents to optimize their commute to work, why can’t internal IT build an effective claims processing system with a million times that budget?)

·         The increasing importance of contextual knowledge in the building and maintaining of enterprise IT systems.

·         The need to expand the idea of global sourcing beyond India and China in order to efficiently harness the requisite contextual knowledge.

In returning to the analyst role, I plan to devote my energies to exploring this transformation and helping clients to exploit newly emerging global sourcing benefits.

Starting next week, I’ll do a weekly wrap up of the interesting things I learned/saw/analyzed during the previous week. This could include vendor briefings, conversations with clients and industry experts, industry events, earnings announcements and/or consulting assignments. On a more frequent basis, I’ll also try to blog specifically about inquiries that I answered during the day or week.