Richard Heeks
Coordinator
Development Informatics Group
University of Manchester


Imagine a vast boxing ring. In one corner we have the business heavyweights – medium and large organisations making powerful use of new technology. In the other corner we have the development lightweights – small organisations delivering development at the grassroots.

At present, they ignore each other. But we don't want them to fight. We want them to dance together. How can we do this? How can we deliver on a large organisation's IT agenda and at the same time deliver development?

Social outsourcing could be the answer. It means IT outsourcing with a human face; with a social conscience and a development agenda. The point is this: there's an ever-growing market for IT outsourcing from the heavyweights. Why not use that for development purposes?

This can be done by outsourcing IT services to sub-contractor enterprises based in poor communities; or which specifically hire from marginalised groups.

Is this just a pipe dream? No: it's already a reality. We can see at least three different "dance formations" i.e. three business models:

• Government social outsourcing: outsourcing IT services from government organisations to local social enterprises. India's Kerala State has led the way here as part of its "Kudumbashree" initiative that outsources data entry and IT training work to women's cooperatives.
• Rural social outsourcing: business process outsourcing from urban businesses to rural micro-enterprise. India's DesiCrew initiative is showing what can be achieved, taking digitisation work to villages in Tamil Nadu State in India.
• IT fair trade: offshoring with a developmental focus. Organisations such as Digital Divide Data and OrphanIT solicit IT services contracts from industrialised world business and manage their fulfilment by social enterprises in Asia.

What are the incentives for the heavyweight client organisations? Here are some:

• They have a response to political criticisms of outsourcing by showing their approach has broader social benefits.
• Social outsourcing builds-in factors known to underpin successful outsourcing: trust, long-term relations, and close interaction of client and sub-contractor.
• More contentiously, when they outsource to poor producers with a very low cost base, these clients see financial savings.
• For government clients, social outsourcing meets both the neo-liberal agenda of "small government" and traditional public sector goals of equity and development.

Of course, there may be downsides. By seeking to go "beyond the market", IT social outsourcing runs the risk of creating something that flies in the face of sound economics; something which is unsustainable and dependent on the client's whims. But these potential risks must be set against not just the client benefits but, more importantly, the benefits to the sub-contractors.

Taking the sub-contractor perspective, then, what development outcomes could the lightweights expect? Kerala's Kudumbashree initiative has been most intensively studied. Analysis shows what has been delivered by this IT social outsourcing project:

• Jobs: more than 4,000 jobs have been created; all for women from poor communities.
• Incomes: the women earn fairly steady incomes of around US$33 per month, taking them and their families above the poverty threshold.
• Investments: most have not only paid off their initial loans but also invested in the additional security of land or housing or gold. Others have been able to undertake social investments: in education, healthcare, or marriage of family members. Alongside this, they now own the physical IT infrastructure their loans paid for.
• Skills: there has been a fairly obvious gain of IT-related skills, but the women have picked up managerial and entrepreneurial skills as well because of their collective involvement in the enterprises they have created.
• Empowerment: beyond the bare facts, what strikes most is the growth in self-confidence that IT social outsourcing has brought to the women sub-contractors. All are able to give examples of improvements in their status and identity that empower them to a broader range of actions at work, in their households, and in their communities.

And it drives three more questions to be answered at the Third Global Knowledge Conference (GK3) and beyond:

• Inventory: what other cases of IT social outsourcing can we gather?
• Intelligence: what lessons can we learn from these cases to build a best practice portfolio?
• Advocacy: how can we persuade more business heavyweights and development lightweights to dance together?