Infosys’ continuing visa issues are causing concern for Infosys clients. While at first, the problem sounded isolated and related to a single whistle-blower, the continuing coverage suggests that the problem may be more widespread. Two recent events are increasing client concern. First, there was a CBS Morning News broadcast which seemed to support the original whistle-blower’s accusation. Then, Infosys itself disclosed that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had found errors in a significant percentage of I-9 employment authorization forms. This, combined with Infosys’ somewhat anemic earnings announcement, has clients wondering what the future holds for Infosys.

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.