What is BODY SHOPPING? What does BODY SHOPPING mean? BODY SHOPPING meaning & explanation

BROWSE The Internet EASY way with The Audiopedia owned Lightina Browser Android app. INSTALL NOW - https://ift.tt/2SipMz9 What is BODY SHOPPING? What does BODY SHOPPING mean? BODY SHOPPING meaning - BODY SHOPPING definition - BODY SHOPPING explanation. Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under https://ift.tt/yjiNZw license. Body shopping is the practice of consultancy firms recruiting workers (generally in information technology sector) in order to contract their services out on tactical short to mid-term basis. IT services companies that practice body shopping assert that they provide real services (such as software development) rather than the "sham" of merely farming out professionals to overseas companies. Body shopping in IT originated during the mid-1990s when there was a huge demand for people with mainframe, COBOL and related technology skills to prevent systems being affected by the Y2K bug. Most specialist Y2K consulting companies operating in the US, Europe, the Middle East, Japan and Australia outsourced their technical manpower requirements to companies operating in India. During the period of 1996-97, such companies operating with India base responded to the heavy demand by recruiting and training local graduates in India specifically for Y2K. Their consultants either worked onshore or offshore at high utilization rates generating huge profit margins and cash reserves. The high-profit margin during this period resulted in fast growth and sufficient assets to invest and expand operations to other IT related business segments post-Y2K. In the modern era of IT off-shoring, outsourcing, and cloud computing, it is widely accepted that IT service companies' strategy (especially for those operating with a huge technical manpower base in India) still continue to focus on similar lines. The companies that do body shopping are renowned for training and developing technical skills for a wide range of client base that is of current demand. Researchers point out that many Indian companies focus heavily on developing a large pool of human resources with technical skills creating a marketplace to 'buy' technical skills on an hourly or daily basis. This led to significant market developments in two areas in the early 2000s: 1. Fierce competition amongst IT service companies from India competing on a global level to win 'time and material and labor tenders' from multinational giants for their IT needs. Such a strategy, though heavily linked to procurement needs of the end-customer, enables IT companies operating from offshore (in particular India) to forecast demand for technical and managerial competencies based on IT-skills-market trends in order to position themselves competitively. 2. Technology and consulting companies operating mainly in western markets during the 1990s (e.g. Accenture, IBM, Hewlett-Packard) were forced to open offices in southeast Asia and move their manpower base there to compete with traditional manpower providers operated from India (e.g. Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services) on large global-level IT bids. According to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report to Congress, for fiscal year 2012, 59 percent of H-1B visas went to computer-related occupations. The same report also cited that 64 percent of the H-1B visa petitions granted were given to workers originating from India. Body shopping companies mainly recruit off-shore and provide training to their employees using their off-shore facilities. Employment costs (both short-term and permanent) are generally offset by the highly profitable billing ratio, especially for on-site assignments abroad. Most companies boast a utilization rate of 80%, which also takes into account the potentially long 'bench period', where an employee is not billable or when their skills are not in demand....