Backlash benefits

Published: March 1 2005 02:00 Last updated: March 1 2005 02:00

Sometimes a backlash can backfire. Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, one of India's biggest IT and outsourcing companies, says the election-year furore over US jobs moving overseas turned out to be a good thing for him.

Premji became the poster boy for outsourcing last year. He was a frequent guest on cable television programmes, most famously as the target of populist outrage from CNN's Lou Dobbs.

But Premji says it all amounted to good "brand building".

"We're indebted to Lou Dobbs," Premji says of the CNN anchor, whose crusade included a name-and-shame list of companies engaged in outsourcing, which he published on his website.

Premji argues that Dobbs's website serves more as an endorsement of the practice than a condemnation.

True or not, Premji says Dobbs' relentless criticism of the practice - which won the anchor recognition as the Organisation for the Rights of America's Workers' Person of the Year - has not stood in the way of profit and revenue growth at Wipro.

In fact, outsourcing is no longer just for the largest corporations - he is beginning to do business with mid-sized companies eager to send jobs overseas.