Outsourcing has evoked innumerable emotions globally, spanning the spectrum of excitement to consternation. From job losses and cheap labor to cost savings and innovation, services globalization seems to have delivered on the promise. Or has it really? Sustained pursuit of collaborative models and global service supply chains seems to have furthered the goal of capitalism, a bandwagon endorsed by corporations and (of late) emerging nation governments as well. The promise of jobs is too alluring to reject; the rhetoric of commoditization too onerous to deny; technological advances too pervasive to dismiss; shifts in economic well-being too potent to ignore. Consequently such pursuits have seemingly put sustainable development on a collision course with economic growth. How has sourcing contributed to this? How could sourcing models enable nations create sustained socio-economic value? Do commercial pursuits have room to co-exist with social well-being? This book is one humble attempt at deciphering this complex maze.

The global sourcing sector is quite wide and fairly encompassive of most of the organized private sector (and increasingly even the unorganized sectors in the context of creating social impacts through pursuing commercial goals). Over the past decade, governments, both national and local have begun to proactively address the opportunities presented by this sector. Meanwhile the industry itself has gone through some significant upheavals thanks to technological innovations, and transformatory realizations in business acumen where opportunities have been crafted bottom-up in a manner befitting much of the growth we see today in the context of globalization. In doing so, the number of actors who have become willing and able participants has only increased exponentially, contributing to a plethora of complexities, dichotomies and convergences. This book is aimed at leadership in the private sector, especially Board room leaders who are looking continually to enhance shareholder value and customer aspirations from an increasingly sophisticated global marketplace. It is aimed at governments, particularly policy-makers, Ministries of Information, Communication & Technologies, Ministries of Human Resources and those various regulatory bodies and parastatal agencies that pursue investment promotion, sector development, external trade, and talent development as they push to transform their economies and enable their citizens to gear up for a technologically-driven futures, regardless of their current readiness or social rigidities. Finally, this book is aimed at those young entrepreneurs who aspire to create some form of value or the other through leveraging modern technologies on the one end, while contending with technological obsolescence on the other end. Last but not the least this book is aimed at each young individual in developing and emerging nations who are vying to remain contributory and relevant in today's fast-paced times, while contending with the vagaries and uncertainties of a globalized world. The intent with this group is to get them to think about larger issues plaguing mankind and our way of life, instead of limiting their entrepreneurial pursuits to capitalist endeavors and personal profiteering alone. There's much that needs to be done and it is no more the concern of a few over the many.