Business Process Offshoring:Challenges in Establishing Enduring Relationships Between Canadian and Indian Organizations

Business Pocess Offshoring (BPO) is having a big impact on the way service activities are being organized across the world, just like manufacturing offshoring changed global manufacturing a few decades ago. This paper examines whether business process offshoring has the potential of helping Canada and India give a fillip to their trade relationship, which is today considerably below its potential. Based on a qualitative study of the experience of four Canadian organizations, it concludes that the impediments to increase cross border trade in services based on business process offshoring are many, and it may take a long time before it becomes a significant driver of growth for the Indian BPO industry or a significant contributor to trade between India and Canada.