Outsourcing Accounting to Sri Lanka

Posted on December 6, 2010 by aviyer2010

A recent New York Times article   (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/business/global/30lanka.html) describes the growing outsourcing of accounting services to companies in Sri Lanka.  The country has a large number (over 10,000) certified accountants with over 30,000 now enrolled.  Given the high literacy rate, and lower wage rates than India, accounting services are a source of comparative advantage for Sri Lanka, with wages that are about 10 % of the average wages in the US.  Is this source of advantage sustainable ? Will outsourcing tax services and management accounting be easy to decouple from daily operations ?

About aviyer2010

Professor
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1 Response to Outsourcing Accounting to Sri Lanka

  1. Gerlinde Mikolik says:
    December 8, 2010 at 8:16 am

    Outsourcing tax services and accounting managenent? Why not? As long as this service can be done by an independent
    third party it is possible to outsource tasks. The difficult part is the communication. For me communication is more than
    speaking a common language (English in general). I think and I experience this every day that new media such as Internet,
    or the traditional phone are helpfull to communicate with other people but from time to time a face-to-face meeting is very
    helpfull in improving processes.

    Reply

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