Today in London the Times published a business supplement with the main newspaper. Nothing unusual in that and not something that I would normally pay a lot of attention to, except that this one is entitled Outsourcing Business and contains research from the National Outsourcing Association about the industry’s performance and consumer perceptions of the industry. Interestingly the British outsourcing industry contributes around £200bn to the economy every year which is around 8% of economic output.

This is not far off the 7% that the hallowed financial services industry contributes, but you would never think that from public perception of the industry, nor from the government’s support of it. It is a sharp contrast to Poland where the industry is well respected and the government has invested in supporting its growth – for example in pushing foreign languages across our education system.

The Times supplement rates Poland as a hub for IT services and call centres. The supplement also contains a lot of best practice advice for anyone responsible for choosing or working with an outsourcer. Another reason that I was interested in today’s supplement is that the article on page 10: Top Ten Tips for Successful Outsourcing and Business Growth includes a tip from Angus MacDougall, who used to be the CEO of Zircadian, a healthcare software provider. The tip he gives is based on the work that we at Future Processing did for him and Future Processing does get a mention too – our first in a British national newspaper! Incidentally, Zircadian was recently bought by Allocate Software, which remains a Future Processing client.