A list of the top 30 up-and-coming countries for offshore services included Argentina, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Romania – shows Scotland was not on the list, he said.

Rigby recently met with high-profile Scottish organisations to design ways that English firms can be encouraged to outsource processes such as software development to Scotland, rather than locations such as India.  The organisations include the Trade Association for Technology in Scotland, the Scottish Development International, and the Chartered Institute for Bankers in Scotland. He has also been meeting with major consultancy firms and utility providers.

The initiative would mainly target outsourcing buyers in England, followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada and the US. “Canada provides outsourcing services to the UK so there is no reason why the UK can’t provide outsourcing services to Canada,” he told the Financial Times.

Rigby said marketing of the initiative would focus on the financial services sector. He pointed to the success of JP Morgan’s centre of excellence for software and application development just outside Glasgow. In response to doubts concerning Scotland’s ability to rival Eastern Europe, Rigby said: “Edinburgh does not rank sixth in the world for asset management for no reason.”

And he pointed to the large technology expertise Scotland holds, particularly the skills of its large pool of graduates. “There is no reason why Scotland cannot position itself as a good base for outsourcing,” he says. “In the central belt, communications are very good, there is a large workforce and good universities – we should try to bring everyone together and encourage international companies to set up outsourcing centres," he told the FT. “The idea is that not only do we service existing companies in Scotland, but we start to provide services globally.”

Scotland has been successful in the relatively new industry of asset servicing. US banks such as State Street and Citigroup have chosen it as a base from which they can offer fund managers in Scotland, the UK and the rest of Europe a variety of services – including investment accounting, performance measurement and treasury functions.

But, while he acknowledges individual companies have had successes, Rigby believes there has been a lack of engagement at the public policy level – and would like to see the appointment of a technology and outsourcing czar to promote these opportunities.

He would also like to see Scotland develop technology and outsourcing parks, where big companies could work alongside smaller organisations and academics, drawn from universities that would offer degrees and postgraduate research in outsourcing.

And he envisages the creation of data centres that would use renewable energy and points out that Scotland has more than 100 uninhabited islands, which could offer unique levels of security. He even believes the Scottish climate could be a selling point, even bragging about its cool temperatures.

“To keep servers cool takes a huge amount of energy. If you are a couple of degrees lower, you actually cut your energy consumption quite considerably. If you go beyond that and use green energy – wind, or more likely hydro – then we can say we have a technology infrastructure in Scotland that is not only great but also green.”

Sources: http://www.ft.com
http://www.vnunet.com/

Footnote: You can already go to http://www.outsourcinghubindia.com, but as yet nothing similar for Scotland.