Realizing the need to inform corporates about the benefits of outsourcing, Express Computer partnered with Sun Microsystems and Tata Internet Services to organize tSource, a seminar on total outsourcing. Explaining the rationale behind tSource, Val Souza, editor of Express Computer said, "The concept of outsourcing today occupies center-stage in the minds of most business leaders. However, business trends indicate that unless outsourcing strategies are perfectly understood and rolled out, it could turn out to be quite expensive for corporates, and even cause business disruption, thus defeating the very purpose of outsourcing."

Seconding this view was Terence Ng, director, xSP sales and partner development for South Asia at Sun Microsystems. He said, "Companies today have no choice but to think of multi-sourcing and should start training their people to manage the SLA because their competition is already doing it."

Ng went on to quote a study conducted by research firm Gartner, which stated that by 2005, 70 percent of organizations will use more than three sources for services, yet less than 10 percent will have the resources and processes in place to manage multiple processes.

The seminar was targeted at CXOs (CIOs, CTOs, CEOs, CFOs) with the aim of giving them a better understanding on how to draw up the best outsourcing strategies for their firms, through an understanding of best practices and proven strategies in outsourcing—using insights, models and solid conceptual frameworks to facilitate better decision making.

tSource was conducted in Mumbai and Bangalore and was well received and well attended by the corporate community. Congratulating Express Computer for organizing such an event, C.R. Sheth, senior manager of IT at Great Eastern Shipping, said that the seminar was timely and really helped give an in-depth understanding of how outsourcing worked in a real environment.

The seminar featured renowned industry speakers like Mani Bharadwaj, director of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Terence Ng of Sun Microsystems, and Ajay Pandey, CEO of Tata Internet Services. TSource dealt with topics like calculating ROI in technology outsourcing, optimum backend infrastructure development, and selecting the right service provider. It also featured case studies across various industry segments.