Top outsourcing expert bids to set up 'Scottish Bangalore'

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A top legal expert on outsourcing is in the process of setting up a think tank that will seek to replicate the Bangalore model of information technology activity in Scotland to attract global business.

Called 'Scottish Bangalore', expert Andrew Rigby believes that Scotland could build on its existing strengths in call centres and financial services, and replicate Bangalore's prosperity based on outsourcing by global companies.

Rigby is in the process of bringing together Scottish government officials, economic development and inward investment agency executives and leading business figures to bring a coordinated approach to the enterprise.

"Leaders across the political spectrum have been supportive of his moves," he told The Herald.

Rigby believes that while Scotland is recognised as a significant player in the call centre industry, it must move up the value chain and become a major player in the global "business process outsourcing" and even more sophisticated "knowledge process outsourcing" arenas.

Scotland, he said, must persuade big global providers of outsourced services to set up base there and also encourage the development of home-grown players in this sector to grab the opportunity which this fast-growing market presents.

In this regard, he pointed to the decision of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) decision to locate in the English Midlands as a missed opportunity for Scotland.

TCS works in close collaboration with the Coventry-based Warwick Manufacturing Group led by Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya.

Rigby said that Vietnam, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Chile, Senegal and Wales were figuring more prominently than Scotland on some independently-researched tables of leading and up-and-coming global outsourcing destinations.

"On an offshore basis, the Americans do actually send a lot of stuff to India but I think, at the knowledge end, the protection of intellectual property requirement, they would be much happier to offshore to somewhere like Scotland than to somewhere like China or India, which have debatable intellectual property protection regimes," he said.

Rigby said there was considerable potential for Scotland to win outsourcing work from "onshore, near-shore and offshore" markets.

"Onshore, there are huge amounts of financial services companies in London we could provide knowledge-based services for.

"Near-shore, Germany, France and Spain have big financial centres or big pharmaceuticals companies wanting R&D, and of course everyone is interested in energy sectors at the moment. We have established skills in all of those (sectors)," he said.

Citing Scotland's economic and political stability, workforce skills including languages, and tax regime as other selling points, he noted the lower cost of having data centres in colder places.