Outsourcing


 * __Background:__**


 * India was second buyer of fiber-optic cable and made the most money (Americans were left with worthless stock in fiber-optic cable because they were the first buyer)
 * Education is high priority in India, "given India's one-billion-plus population, this competition produces a phenenomenal knowleged meritocracy. It's like a factory, churning out and exporting some of the most gifted engineering, computer science, and software talent on the globe"(127).
 * In the mid-90's these educated Indians left the country and went to America since India could not provide good jobs for these talented engineers (brain drain)
 * all types of companies have outsourced their work to India including: typing up books and dictionaries, medical transcription, transcription of voice for doctors to read over notes

__**Major distringuishing characteristics:**__


 * fiber-optic cable allowed Indians to do American jobs while staying in their country
 * the job-trend as low-paying, low-presige jobs in the US went to India where they were high-presige and higher paying than avg. job
 * year 2000 scare with possibility of all computers crashing and India had enough computer techs to make software to stop this problem (represented biggest opportunity for Indian industry)
 * India benefited more from the dot-com bust than the dot-com boom (cost pressures were enormous so companies searched for ways to cut costs)


 * __Ultimate significance:__**


 * America and India relationship became a huge flattener, because it demonstrated to so many different businesses that the combination of the PC, the Internet, and the fiber-optic cable had created the possibility of a whole new form of collaboration and horizaontal value creation: outsourcing
 * Any service, call center, business support operation, or knowledge work that could be digitized could be sourced globally to the cheapest, smartest, most efficient provider
 * Y2K made possible emplyment at midnight-employment for India's best knowledge workers