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Keeping IT Work Close to Home
Corporations can outsource to rural states
April, 9 2004
Sending IT projects to another country isn't the only way CIOs can keep labor costs in
check. They can send IT work to the country, says former health-care CIO Dr. Kathy
Britain White.
A longtime proponent of farming out IT work to rural U.S. areas, White is the founder of
Rural Sourcing Inc. (RSI), a Jonesboro, Ark.-based nonprofit organization that enables
CIOs to outsource work to underutilized, lower-cost IT workers in outlying areas of the
United States the same way they would to India or China.
The seeds of the idea date back 10 years to when White was CIO of Baxter Healthcare
and had trouble finding and keeping IT talent. Born and raised in Oxford, Ark.
(population 642), White knew there were qualified workers outside big-city limits. "We
were having trouble finding people around Chicago," she recalls. "So I went on a
recruiting trip to Arkansas to an area where there wasn't much industry and there were no
companies in town, and we started a virtual internship program that allowed students to
stay in Arkansas and work on our projects from there."
White continued the rural virtual internship program when she became CIO of Cardinal
Health outside Cleveland. And when she left that post last year, she saw an opportunity to
take her pet project to another level. The rise in popularity of offshore outsourcing had
proven to CIOs that remote workers could produce high-quality work. So, White thought,
why not apply that model stateside in areas of the country where the cost of living is
lower?
White says she is able to offer IT workers salaries from $38,000 to $50,000 a year in
rural markets, which is competitive with what CIOs will pay for offshore talent if you
look at total cost of ownership. And the talent is as good as anywhere else in the countryor
the world-White says. "I know firsthand the capabilities and work ethics of individuals
from rural areas and how many are underemployed. But because of family and personal
reasons, they have to stay in the area," says White, who hopes RSI can bring economic
expansion and better employment opportunities to underdeveloped regions.
So far, partnerships play a big role at RSI, which is currently working with local
universities and governments to attract employees, and partnering with companies such
as Optimal Solutions Integration (an enterprise technology consulting company) and
Novell to jointly market its offerings.
RSI has one development center with 15 full-time employees and several part-time
student workers in Arkansas doing work on two pilots (for Cardinal Health and Mattel).
White also has plans to open centers in Oklahoma, North Carolina and New Mexico in
2005.
"I believe [this] can really be a viable alternative way to source IT intellect in the future,"
says Mattel CIO Joe Eckroth, who has three RSI employees working on Web
development and support. "If done right, it can actually be more attractive than offshore
for many time-sensitive or mission-critical initiatives." So far, the pilot is going well and
Eckroth plans to look at expanding the RSI relationship in 2005 as a complement to the
offshore outsourcing he does to India and China.
Currently, RSI's focus is on application maintenance, Web-based technologies, and "any
project that [CIOs] don't want to do in-house but requires frequent contact between the
outsourcer and the client," White says. But the plan is to add application development
skills next. The ultimate goal, White says, is to create a full-blown rural sourcing
company with 50 sites in 20 states, offering a far-reaching portfolio of IT capabilities.
"This is my passion," White says. "I believe in a global economy, but to let pieces of
America be disadvantaged while building economies offshore is a shame. I believe we
can be part of a global solution. And this is a great opportunity to do something while
there's still time to do it." |
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