According to Ajmani, Australia is an increasingly attractive outsourcing target for overseas countries such as the US due to a relatively low employment cost stemming from the current exchange rate.
US companies also stand to benefit from continuous development and support when they outsourced IT projects to Australian firms due to the time differences between the continents, he said.
Ajmani is a vice president at US-originating elance.com, which opened its Asia-Pacific office in Sydney this week.
Ajmani believes Australia's much-publicised IT skills shortage is little more than a misunderstanding. He believes Australia has enough skilled professionals to carry out most IT jobs, but that bidders and tenderers are attempting to link up via different channels.
He said -Net-savvy" IT outsourcing firms typically sought work through Internet portals, while large corporates tendered for outsourcing projects via traditional media.
-They're essentially missing one another. It's a mismatch, not a shortage," he said.
elance conducts an online outsourcing exchange where corporates can tender outsourcing projects and IT firms can bid through a single Web site.
Projects tendered through the site include Web design, graphic design and other -remote professional services" that do not require any face-to-face interaction to carry out, company officials said. elance takes 10 percent of the outsourcer's final pay cheque.
