Global managers who draw inputs from various sources including general project management references, books and literature, are increasingly looking towards such "Level 101"trainings to supplement their knowledge. As offshore outsourcing of technology projects increase in size and complexity, training programs are expected to gain prominence.

To address the demand for training and enablement of offshoring managers, an increasing number of ‘Level 101’ training and courses have emerged [Ref Table below]. These courses attempt to strengthen the existing training programs and focus on aspects of business management, program and project management along with an emphasis on the softer side including cross cultural communication and nuances of managing across time and space boundaries.  

Table: Indicative list of ‘Level 101’ courses focusing on Outsourcing and Offshoring management

Ref: Offshoring management experts - Express Computer

'Offshoring 101'  'fundamentals of outsourcing'  'beginners guide to offshoring' are topics gaining popularity in Business schools, academies and institutions.  Universities and academic institutions are also launching offshoring courses. Some of the contemporary courses and programs include:

Outsourcing Times :: Outsourcing 101 Offshoring for Beginners

Article:: Universities begin to offer courses on offshoring [By Julie Forster, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.]

As he studies for his MBA, Jeremy Esensten, a project manager for American Express Financial Advisors, wants to learn more about offshore outsourcing.

By visiting companies in India, the 29-year-old part-time student at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management plans to get a closer look at how to manage an outsourced work force and how the workplace compares to that in the United States. If things work as planned, Esensten and other Carlson students will spend two weeks in Bangalore, a major hub of global business, getting a behind-the-scenes view of outsourcing from the perspective of managers in local and global professional service firms.

"My company is so involved in it already, it's good for my own growth to have that knowledge and be familiar with it," he said. Outsourcing jobs overseas has moved into the corporate mainstream, and now it's moving into the classroom. This fall, Carlson will join a small but growing list of business schools launching so-called "Offshoring 101" courses.

Schools are recognizing that the strategy -- even though it has sparked renewed political debate as its reach extends to a broader range of jobs -- has settled in for good at U.S. businesses looking to stay competitive. "Over the next year, I think every major business school will have courses on outsourcing," said Amar Gupta, a professor who developed an offshoring course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management.

Whether offshoring is taking a meaningful bite out of the U.S. jobs market is sharply contested. A recent U.S. Labor Department report concluded that a relatively small percentage of job loss here can be attributed to outsourcing overseas.

Clearly, a growing number of companies are embracing the practice. IBM and the consulting firm Accenture alone plan to add close to 9,000 jobs in India by the end of 2005, according to Forrester Research, a Massachusetts-based firm. Forrester now projects 830,000 U.S. service jobs will move overseas by the end of 2005, a 40 percent increase over its original estimate. The research firm projects that by 2015, 3.4 million U.S. services jobs will move offshore.

Armed with their business and overseas contacts, a group of Indian faculty members at Carlson is now developing "Managing Globally," the offshoring class the school plans to launch this fall. The way it is now envisioned, Carlson students will take the outsourcing class in the fall and then travel to India to connect with students at the Indian Institute of Management, a business school based in Bangalore.

By the time they meet face to face, the students will have completed a case study together across the time zones. That will be followed by visits to Indian outsourcing giants Infosys and Wipro and to the call centers and other operations that U.S.-based companies have set up in India.

Kyle Marinkovich, 29, a Carlson student interested in taking the offshoring class, said he wants to learn more about the work environment and the skill level of the workers in India. The topic is not going away, he said.

"So many people don't realize what stocks they have in their 401(k)s and their pension funds," Marinkovich said. "They demand a certain level of return. The only way these companies can maintain those levels of return is to remain competitive.

"In a lot of ways, offshoring isn't an option," he said. "It's a necessity in the competitive landscape that these firms operate in."  Mani Subramani, a Carlson professor who once worked at the leading Indian supplier Wipro, will teach the school's offshoring course. Studying the strategy of companies with operations in India such as Honeywell and American Express will help students gain a better understanding of just how value is created through the practice of offshoring. "There's going to be interest," he said of the course. "The kind of people who recognize the value in this class are the part-time students who are in the workplace and see the urgency of these issues day to day."

The idea behind the offshoring courses is to understand the implications of moving jobs overseas, the cultural differences and technical challenges of getting work done.

As more companies peel away noncore operations -- including call centers and human resources work -- managers have to adapt to a changing corporate structure, said Robert Kauffman, chairman of the information and decision sciences department at Carlson. "I believe the management of vendor relationships is a critical skill that graduate MBAs have to have under their belt," he said.

When MIT offered its first course last spring, students who missed out of the 55 available spots lined up at the door the first day, said Gupta, the MIT professor.

Gupta also led a separate trip to India to visit multinational companies that operate there. Students met with policy makers. The trip was meant to underscore business opportunities in India and for students to learn more about outsourcing. In his classes, Gupta points out, he doesn't advocate a certain position but presents the pros and cons so students can make better decisions in their jobs. "What we want to impart to the students is that outsourcing is here to stay," he said. "Irrespective of where they are posted in the world, they are going to have to manage multiple constituencies from around the world."

A handful of other schools, such as New York University's Stern School of Business, have started to address the topic. Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., also just started a class in the spring on information tech outsourcing, which includes a trip to India. Not all MBA programs are convinced that separate classes on the topic are necessary. Some believe that it can be covered as topics in existing coursework. The University of St. Thomas, for example, addresses the topic as it comes up in any number of business classes.

"Our present thinking is that putting all of that into a course might actually be a bit of overkill," said Christopher Puto, dean of the St. Thomas College of Business. "We have a variety of courses that include overseas experiences and elements of that topic arise in these courses. At the present time, we don't see the need for a full-blown course."

--Carlson School of Management, U of M: Outsourcing class planned for fall. Will include classroom work in late fall with a two-week trip to Bangalore, India, in January.

--Sloan School, MIT: Spring class covered technical, strategic and economic aspects of outsourcing. After overwhelming demand, professor is trying to figure out how to offer it to more students. Speakers included labor leaders, founder of Infosys and chief information officer for Ford Motor Co.

--Bentley College: Introduced an offshoring class and took trip to Bangalore, India, in January. Trip included visit to Indian supplier Infosys. Another trip is planned.

--Kelley School, Indiana University: MBA students last spring studied outsourcing in the classroom for eight weeks before taking a trip to India. Outsourcing is discussed in bits and pieces throughout the MBA curriculum.

--University of St. Thomas: Outsourcing is discussed in various business classes. No separate class and no plans to introduce one.