Ethical Offshore Outsourcing
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ethical outsourcing
Whether we like it or not, international trade in services is growing.
And it should - it leverages the existing communications infrastructure
for trade that doesn't require costly fossil fuels, it enables people
to access markets without having to relocate, and it provides real
opportunity that was promised in the efforts to overcome the "digital
divide". But what about the ethics of offshore outsourcing?
With the offshore outsourcing of food production and manufacturing that has gone on for three decades, the global market led to a "race to the bottom" in terms of deteriorating labor conditions, environmental protections, and social responsibility. Will it happen in services, and in particular IT? At this point, there is only anecdotal evidence at what may happen with this new trend, but that evidence does show that it can be a problem in at least some cases.
ifPeople, which has a mandate to innovate as a sustainable business, decided to make a response to the context, making responsible business a priority. We used the fair trade standard as a basis for creating a standard adapted to professional services called FairSource. As opposed to other companies claiming to provide "ethical outsourcing," this approach is more rigorous and transparent. The standard has been presented in international conferences and peer reviewed in publications. It has been refined with continuous improvement with stakeholders in IT, NGOs, and in the microenterprises that engage in the process. It provides a comprehensive approach to managing distributed, offshore labor in an ethical way for all stakeholders.
You can read more about FairSource in depth on this site. You can also read about how you can engage ifPeople in ethical outsourcing for software development and services.
With the offshore outsourcing of food production and manufacturing that has gone on for three decades, the global market led to a "race to the bottom" in terms of deteriorating labor conditions, environmental protections, and social responsibility. Will it happen in services, and in particular IT? At this point, there is only anecdotal evidence at what may happen with this new trend, but that evidence does show that it can be a problem in at least some cases.
ifPeople, which has a mandate to innovate as a sustainable business, decided to make a response to the context, making responsible business a priority. We used the fair trade standard as a basis for creating a standard adapted to professional services called FairSource. As opposed to other companies claiming to provide "ethical outsourcing," this approach is more rigorous and transparent. The standard has been presented in international conferences and peer reviewed in publications. It has been refined with continuous improvement with stakeholders in IT, NGOs, and in the microenterprises that engage in the process. It provides a comprehensive approach to managing distributed, offshore labor in an ethical way for all stakeholders.
You can read more about FairSource in depth on this site. You can also read about how you can engage ifPeople in ethical outsourcing for software development and services.
