Well, it’s January 7^th– the first Monday in 2013 – and back to work for almost everyone. No more holiday slackness. As usual there are lots of predictions for 2013 about and I find that many can be divided into predictions that revel in holiday slackness making us not want to go back to work: more austerity, public sector IT cuts; and the like and those that are raring to get going again, motivating us for the year ahead: sky-rocketing demand for mobile apps, huge increases in the number of smartphones that will be purchased this year and so forth.  You get my gist. Generally focusing on the more positive predictions has served Future Processing well. However, there is one piece of news that isn’t at all positive for those employees involved but that could signal an interesting trend for this year.

According to the Economic Times of India, IT outsourcer Infosys, is letting 5,000 employees go this year. The company has now said that in fact the number will be lower and the employees laid off will be those considered to be under-performing. However, Infosys is also looking more closely at markets outside of India, including Eastern Europe and has now said that it will not be actively pursuing new contracts with the Indian government. I think this highlights the pressure that some large-scale offshore providers are facing. It is also another sign of the changing shape of the IT outsourcing industry. It will be interesting to see if other large offshore providers set up operations in near-shore destinations as some did last year. At any rate, greater focus on nearshore destinations signals more choice for customers.