* Tipped to be a very wealthy teen

* Companies queue to join backers

* Sails the world but no L-plates yet

Australian solo round the world sailor Jessica Watson

JESSICA Watson could be one of the country’s richest teenagers, with a multi-million-dollar sponsorship bonanza awaiting her return to dry land.

Jessica, 16, who sailed out of Australian waters in a rush of controversy, has entered the home stretch of her journey and will return in late April-early May to a warm welcome and live TV coverage.

There will also be a raft of deals awaiting the Sunshine Coast girl’s signature, which could make her the highest-earning Aussie teen.

Her round-the-world odyssey, solo and unassisted, will reap big rewards financially as companies queue to join early backers Ella Bache and One HD.

“We’ve had approaches from an automotive company but she hasn’t even got her L-plates yet,” said spokesman Andrew Fraser. “She’s old enough to sail round the world but can’t drive a car.”

While she still has more than 6000 nautical miles to sail to Sydney Harbour, she is on course to become a global star in the mould of Olympic snowboarder Torah Bright – transcending the confines of sailing to become a poster girl for action and adventure.

Dubbed the “Jessica juggernaut”, interest in the teenager is skyrocketing.

Her website receives about one million hits a week and her fan base has extended internationally.

Jessica’s book, which she is writing at sea, will be released in late July and coincide with the release of a documentary.

“Our job is to manage and protect the Jessica Watson brand. If done properly, then she will maximise the potential of the commercial opportunities that present themselves,” Mr Fraser said.

He has already received more than 20 requests for appearances by Jessica, with various offers flooding in, and staff at 5 Oceans Media are working full-time to cope with demand.

“We have tried to avoid talking about anything but such is the interest now Jess is very excited it is all getting so close,” Mr Fraser said.

Interest in a teen – who captured the imagination of a nation at first worried she was too young for a trip that has seen her survive cyclonic force winds, wild seas and terrifying knockdowns – could make her a multi-millionaire.

Yesterday, however, far from the wheeling and dealing surrounding her imminent return, Jessica was happily surfing the Indian Ocean on her little 34-foot yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady.

“There’s still so many miles to cover across the Indian and then around the bottom of Australia but it really feels like we’re on the homeward leg now,” she blogged.

Jessica is now about 4000 nautical miles off the West Australian coast, about 6000 nautical miles from the finish of her voyage.

http://www.news.com.au/business/solo-sailor-jess-set-to-make-millions/story-e6frfm1i-1225834980029

Today is super exciting for us.

Today we have just moved our home-based small business to Bel Air Resort at Broadbeach on the beautiful Gold Coast of Australia.

And to say we are excited would be an understatement

One of our very special friends David, has been living at Bel Air for the last 5 years, and for most of that time he has been operating his “Australian Talent School” small business from home. He has recently expanded his business, so he has now moved his studio into premises just up the road.
(and yes, we built this website)

He has suggested for ages that we move to Bel Air, so today we have done it.

And wow !!!

This is one of the garden areas where we will be operating our Home-based Small Business from.

Click Here to take a look at a few pickies – it’s really nice.

Here’s an inspiring interview I wanted to share with you …

It’s called “Hollywood Seachange”

This guy was a high flying record executive who picked up everything to move into a garage on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

I hope this inspires you to want to grow your small business into an exciting successful small business.

The interview was screened on January 9, 2009

More than ever, you can be your own travel agent as inside information goes online, writes Jane E. Fraser.

Sydney fron the air.

Remember when travel agents had all the power? When only they could interpret the mysterious codes required to book even a simple air ticket and had access to the information needed to put together a good itinerary? Now we can all book our own flights, accommodation, tours and activities if we choose to, thanks to the development of point-and-click technology.

And the power shift continues as more information previously available only to those in the industry becomes available to consumers.

There will always be a limit to how much time and effort people are willing to put into sourcing their own answers but, for those who want to, there isn’t much that can’t be found.

When it comes to flying, one of the best sources of information is the Official Aviation Guide, first published in 1929. The OAG’s web tools (www.oag.com/travel-guides/air-route-info/) are a great resource for travellers, allowing you to search for a range of information.

If you need to work out which airlines fly a certain route, which routes a particular airline flies or how long it takes to fly from point A to point B, the answers are there.

These tools can be used to help you decide on a destination, according to your personal tolerance of flying.

If you don’t want to fly for more than eight hours, you can search for destinations within that range from your home city. If you hate changing planes and only want to go somewhere you can reach in one flight, you can search for direct routes from your point of departure.

If you’re trying to minimise or maximise your time away, perhaps in the case of a short break or weekend trip, you can also search for the first and/or last flight of the day on any given route.

Another thing that may help travellers perplexed by the growing trend of “codesharing” by airlines is the “who am I really flying with” tool. Codesharing is a system of airlines sharing seats on an aircraft, rather than flying two half-empty aircraft on the same route.

For example, you might book a British Airways flight with a “BA” flight number yet find yourself on a Qantas plane or another carrier. Some airlines offering flights from Australia don’t even fly their own aircraft here – they work in conjunction with another carrier to get their passengers as far as Asia or other hubs, then fly them the rest of the way in their own planes.

It is particularly useful to know which airline you are actually flying with if you have special needs, such as a baby requiring a bassinet, as on-board facilities and services can vary greatly from airline to airline.

Or you might want to make sure you’re doing a long flight on an aircraft that has in-seat entertainment in economy, as some carriers still have not installed it.

Another useful site for planning a trip, especially if you’re not sure where you want to go, is Skyscanner (skyscanner.net), which allows you to leave the destination field blank, or narrowed down only by country.

The site breaks down available flights from your departure point into direct and indirect services and can give you an interesting range of options to consider.

If you find a flight and price that you like and click on “book”, you will be directed to the relevant airline’s website to make the booking.

For serious bargain hunters, another useful website is Yapta (yapta.com), which tracks price changes in air fares and other travel products, such as hotel rooms, you select to keep an eye on.

You can be notified when the price drops, or when it falls within your budget range, so you can try to buy at a good time.

The company claims to have saved its members (free sign up) more than $US150 million ($170 million) during the past two years.

Last word on luggage

TRYING to find out what luggage you are allowed to take on a flight can be a frustrating process, with every airline having different rules and policies varying from route to route.

Enter Luggage Limits (luggagelimits.com), a site that provides detailed information for 64 major airlines and more than 3000 airports. Developed by a high school maths teacher, the site cross-references an airline with the departure and arrival airports to tell you exactly what your luggage entitlements are.

The site covers both checked-in luggage and hand luggage and provides details such as allowed dimensions, the number of bags allowed, any restrictions relevant to that route and what the fees for excess baggage are. It even allows for different entitlements under frequent flyer programs.

The inventor of the mobile phone says the devices have become too complex, with a range of features from cameras to music, since he made the first wireless call more than three decades ago.

Martin Cooper, the inventor of the mobile phone.

“Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do any things well,” former Motorola researcher Martin Cooper said at a privacy conference in Madrid.

“Our future, I think, is a number of specialist devices that focus on one thing that will improve our lives,” he added.

Cooper, 80, who was born in Chicago, was the lead engineer of the Motorola team that developed the handheld mobile phone. He made the first wireless call from a busy Manhattan street corner on April 3, 1973.

“The first cell phone model weighed over one kilo and you only could talk for 20 minutes before the battery ran out, which is just as well because you would not be able to hold it up for much longer,” he said.

“What we did with this mobile telephone was create a revolution. Before the mobile phone existed we were calling a place, now we are calling a person.”

Since that first call was made, the popularity of mobile phones has soared, with more than 4 billion people owning one today compared with only 300,000 in 1984, he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/mobile-inventor-says-todays-phones-are-too-complex-20091105-hyo5.html

I just found this interesting tattoo ….

Bora Bora has often been called the world's most beautiful island.

The five-star resorts on tropical Bora Bora are exclusive and expensive, making them popular with celebrities.

Bora Bora comprises one main island of 29sq-km, roughly the shape of a seahorse, with white-sand beaches and surrounded by a coral reef and strings of "motus" (islets)

Bora Bora's tourism people are grateful for the publicity generated by Couples Retreat, having suffered along with the other holiday islands of the South Pacific due to the world economic meltdown.

The Sofitel Resort's bar is named after, and is decorated with photographs of, the 1969 film Hurricane starring Jason Robards and Mia Farrow.

Paradise found ... Sofitel Motu Bora Bora.

Sofitel Bora Bora's restaurant.

A room over the water at Sofitel Bora Bora Marara Beach resort.

Sofitel Bora Bora Beach Resort.

Bora Bora is a popular choice for celebrities - whether for work or play.

Snorkelling at Club Med in Bora Bora.

The island is the remnants of an extinct and sinking volcano with its two peaks - Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu - making up the two main islands.

You can't visit Bora Bora without spending an entire day zipping across its waters and exploring the many sights.

Club Med offers an all-inclusive experience in Bora Bora.

Sunset at Club Med Bora Bora.

Tahiti is the largest and most populated island but is often just a stepping stone for holidaymakers, honeymooners and the rich and famous headed for Bora Bora - just an hour's flight to the north-east.

Bora Bora is among the most famous of the 118 islands that make up French Polynesia - a French territory that spans an area as large as Europe.

Club Med Bora Bora.

The recently-released Hollywood movie Couples Retreat, mostly filmed on Bora Bora, has been given a mixed reception by critics, but many of them agreed on one point: that the real star is the island of Bora Bora.

Bora Bora has often been called the world’s most beautiful island.

It comprises one main island of 29sq-km, roughly the shape of a seahorse, with white-sand beaches and surrounded by a coral reef and strings of “motus” (islets); resident population is about 6,000.

In between lies a lagoon of breathtakingly-brilliant colours, from turquoise to deep blue.

In the jungled hills of the interior, volcanic mountains named Otemanu (727m high) and Pahia (661m) dominate the skyline.

At Bora Bora’s airport, located on Motu Mote,a fleet of boats waits to transport incoming tourists to their resort hotels, many of which offer “over the-water” bungalows with glass panels in the floors providing mesmerising views of the fish swimming below.

The five-star resorts on tropical Bora Bora are exclusive and expensive, popular with celebrities – Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban honeymooned at the St Regis where they occupied the palatial 1,208sq-m “royal estate” for four nights priced at $US15,000 ($A16,374) a night.

But the island also has “pensions” (French for guest-houses), and other cheaper accommodation.

Among activities for tourists are sailing in the lagoon where Polynesian guides introduce them to feeding (small, reef, friendly) sharks and playing with stingrays, also diving, snorkelling and boating of all kinds.

On land there are 4WD safaris into the interior for some splendid ocean views and to visit some of the 50 ancient “maraes,” holy places where Polynesians once prayed and made sacrifices to their gods.

Or try helicopter flights around the mountains, reefs and beaches.

The airport, and tourism in French Polynesia generally, owe much to the events of World War II.

On many inland tours on this peaceful and laid-back tropical island, you come across a reminder of war: Two deactivated seven-inch (17.8cm) cannons, still aimed at possible invaders by sea, remain on a hillside where eight of them were installed after Bora Bora became an American base early in 1942, just weeks after the US was propelled into World War II by the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor in Honolulu.

Having sustained grave losses to its Pacific fleet, Washington needed a South Pacific military and refuelling base – and the French agreed with their new war ally that it should be Bora Bora.

One significant reason was that there is only one opening in the reef allowing ships through to the main island, making it easy to detect any Japanese submarine raiders (who never came).

A US armada arrived on February 17 1942 with 4,450 men and 178 officers in two troop carriers plus two cruisers, two destroyers, two cargo boats and one tanker – greeted enthusiastically by the Polynesian population in outrigger canoes, who suddenly found themselves outnumbered by five-to-one.

The Americans found a lovely but primitive island with no roads, no airstrip and an inadequate water supply.

They installed a water system, built a sealed road around the island and constructed and filled 30 fuel tanks.

As well, they completed French Polynesia’s first airstrip, with a 2km-long runway, in April 1943.

(Papeete’s Faa’a international airport did not open until 1962.)

The two most visible remaining cannons, their barrels nearly 7m long, are a favourite target for tourists’ cameras along with Mount Otemanu, which seems to appear as background in almost every snapshot taken on Bora Bora, be they on or away from the beaches.

Something else the GIs reportedly left behind when they left early in 1946: at least 68 children babies born to local girls.

The recently-released Hollywood movie Couples Retreat, mostly filmed on Bora Bora, has been given a mixed reception by critics in Australia and America, but many of them agreed on one point: that the real star is the island of Bora Bora.

The island, called Earth’s most beautiful by the late author James Michener and scores of others, was never identified during the film, and was only given a mention at the foot of the final list of credits.

Universal Studios booked the entire St Regis Resort for four weeks during the shoot, renaming it the Eden Resort for the occasion, then took 50 American journalists to Bora Bora shortly before the premiere.

(St Regis says it offers package holidays but none for people with marital problems like the four holidaying couples in the movie – and there’s no special hedonistic island for singles there, either.)

A number of other movies have been shot in and around Bora Bora over the past 80 years, notably the three versions of the Mutiny on The Bounty story.

The star of the 1962 film, the late Marlon Brando, fell in love with Tahiti and her islands while here on location, married a Polynesian woman, bought his own small island and was a frequent visitor to Bora Bora.

The Sofitel Resort’s bar is named after, and is decorated with photographs of, the 1969 film Hurricane starring Jason Robards and Mia Farrow.

Bora Bora’s tourism people are grateful for the publicity generated by Couples Retreat, having suffered along with the other holiday islands of the South Pacific due to the world economic meltdown which saw overseas visitor arrivals in French Polynesia slump by 22.7 per cent to 87,929 for the first seven months of this year; two resorts are closed.

Australian figures were down 39.8 per cent to 2,337 while New Zealanders were 28.2 per cent fewer at 1,074.

The Australian figures may also have been affected by Air Tahiti Nui’s decision last April to suspend its direct Sydney-Papeete flights; Australians can now go to Auckland on a Qantas flight code-shared with Air Tahiti Nui, then change to the Tahiti airline’s New Zealand-Papeete service.

But there’s hope that the direct Sydney-Papeete flights will be resumed soon – Tourism Minister Jacqui Drollet made this one of the priorities in a recent statement outlining plans for 2010, along with promotions in countries such as Australia, the US and Brazil.

Secret software is helping a new breed of high-speed traders get really rich, really quick.

Dinesh "Danny" Bhandari.

To some, it’s the geeks’ revenge. ”These are the guys who can calculate 42 times 832 in their heads,” one insider says.

To others, it is the dark side of share trading – proof that the dice are loaded against the average investor.

However you look at it, it is being used to get filthy rich. Quickly.
They are the new breed of derivatives traders: they have no clients, they trade their firm’s own money using high-powered computer programs like F1 – Formula One, so-called because it is so fast – based on secret algorithms.

US sharemarket officials and Congress are mulling bans on some of their tricks. And it is so profitable, the big banks are using it. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have devoted pages to the dark arts of ”high-intensity” and ”low-latency” trading and the world of ”dark pools”.

Little over a decade after the demise of the chalkboard trading room floor, technology is outpacing regulatory attempts to keep a level playing field and fair market.

And the advent of superfast computers and programs has given rise to high-frequency trading whereby the game is outrunning other investors, and leading to a ”technological arms race”.

The local market regulator, the Australian Stock Exchange – which makes money from every trade on market – has issued a discussion paper with the objective of ”identifying improvements” in trading rules.

And in the meantime the likes of 32-year-old Dinesh ”Danny” Bhandari (right), from Kensington, are making millions of dollars.

Most start-ups take a few years to turn a buck. Not Tibra Capital. In 2006, fresh from parting ways with his Dutch-based rival Optiver, the South Australian-born derivatives trader Bhandari put $2 million into a new business venture. Reflecting the nature of his split with Optiver, it was originally called FTD – or F— the Dutch.

A handful of former colleagues at Optiver plus some fresh investors joined him, using their private companies with creative names such as Begg, Borrow and Steal, Impropriety Unlimited and Rottengarabaldi to chip in a further $4 million.

They set to work, seeking to profit on tiny price differences by buying and selling shares, futures, bonds, derivatives and options, trading in the hundreds of millions of dollars per day.

High-frequency traders test prices by issuing buy or sell orders that can be withdrawn in milliseconds, giving traders an idea of the market’s willingness to trade at those prices.

They can also earn tiny profits millions of times over from rebates provided by exchanges for being a market maker, or by being willing to buy and sell when there is a shortage of other traders.

Incredibly, in its first full year Tibra turned a profit of $14 million. The following year it made a profit of $57 million. And accounts just lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show that, despite the global financial crisis, Tibra posted a $77.5 million profit last year. Revenue nearly doubled, to $271 million. Between them, the salaries of the six key executives were $6.8 million.

Tibra’s extraordinary growth led to Bhandari’s debut on the BRW Young Rich List this year with a personal fortune conservatively estimated at $40 million. Last year he was named the young entrepreneur of the year by Ernst & Young.

But Tibra’s success has been called into question. Private investigators have been used to gather evidence before a myriad court actions by Optiver over the past three years amid claims Bhandari and his colleagues are profiting from software that belongs to their former employer.

Tibra denies the allegations. ”We believe there is no basis to these claims and we will take all appropriate steps to vigorously defend our position,” a company spokeswoman told BusinessDay yesterday.

Over recent months the darker side of high-intensity trading has been the subject of regulatory scrutiny in the US.

”Powerful algorithms – ‘algos’, in industry parlance – execute millions of orders a second and scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously,” The New York Times said in July. ”They can spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies within milliseconds.”

Some estimates put the volume of trade performed by algorithms on US markets at more than half. Joseph Mecane of NYSE Euronext, which operates the New York Stock Exchange, told The New York Times: ”It’s become a technological arms race, and what separates winners and losers is how fast they can move.”

High-volume traders argue they provide liquidity to the market but one federal prosecutor noted in a recent case of a former Goldman Sachs programmer – accused of stealing secret computer codes – that the software could ”manipulate markets in unfair ways”.

In another case in the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Optiver of manipulating the price of oil. Transcripts and taped conversations included in the commissions’s case reveal that traders in Optiver’s Chicago office talked openly among themselves of ”whacking” and ”bullying up” the price of oil.

When called to account by officials of the New York Mercantile Exchange, they described their actions as ”providing liquidity”.

”We have created a market that best serves those who don’t want to hold anything,” Tim Quast, an investor relations executive, told a conference in Denver last month.

In Australia most of the big investment banks also conduct proprietary trading using algorithms. But it’s the likes of Tibra – with operations in Sydney, London, Hong Kong and Amsterdam and the US next on the list – which had been quietly making millions from a standing start, that has the market talking.

Already its staff of 200 has more IT people than traders – 80 to 75.

Its operations spilled into the public sphere not only with Bhandari’s appearance on the BRW Young Rich List. Tibra has been battling its way through the courts in a series of clashes over the past three years.

Optiver alleges Bhandari and his colleagues used its confidential information to help set up Tibra’s programs. It is also suing for copyright infringement and seeking damages for Tibra ”flagrantly” and ”recklessly” using its confidential software.

One claim states how, in 2004, Optiver employees wrote a a piece of programming code to improve its trading speed from 80 milliseconds to between 0.5 to 1.5 milliseconds – speeds with which mere mortals cannot compete.

In late 2005, according to one court claim, Optiver ”terminated” Bhandari’s employment.

By the middle of the following year further trading and technology employees quit to join Bhandari at Tibra, including Glenn Williamson, Tim Berry, Andrew King, Martin Nickolas and Kinsey Cotton.

Optiver’s boss, Robert Keldoulis, ”became suspicious at the speed with which Tibra had moved from a newly incorporated company to a successful competitor” and discovered emails sent by one former employee, Andrew King.

It is alleged that suggestions were made on how to improve the speed of the Optiver F1 system. This will be examined when the case returns to court this month.

Tibra says the claims are baseless and will be vigorously defended.

When BusinessDay approached Tibra seeking an interview with Bhandari, a Tibra spokeswoman said he was overseas on extended leave until March.

In a recent interview after he was named the young entrepreneur of the year, Bhandari gave an insight into his business. ”Our aim essentially is to trade in other people’s risk and trade with a view to keeping our positions relatively neutral,” Bhandari said in the interview, hosted on CommSec’s website.

While a Warren Buffett takes a view on an industry, a sector or a company, Bhandari is different.

”We don’t generally take a view on the market,” he says. ”What we’re doing is a lot of transactions, many many thousands of transactions a day, and obviously just trying to make a small profit on each or on some of those trades.”

It’s the volume traded, not the direction of markets, where they make their money.

”Our business is somewhat immune from the directions of financial markets.”

But the global financial crisis brings fresh challenges, including government and market supervisory interest.

The importance of technology to the company’s profit is clear: ”We are very much a technology company. And we integrate trading strategies and trading operations with what we call cutting-edge technology to give us an advantage.

”Our advantage is not our position in the market or the size of our company but the technology we’re able to bring to our operations.”

Online chat rooms are filled with tales of young graduates wanting to work for companies like Tibra. They talk of an aptitude test that demands lightning-fast problem-solving.

The firm’s culture draws much attention, too. Staff wear thongs to work and drive sports cars, one insider says.

Bhandari portrays himself as a modest, sport-loving guy. ”For me personally, I enjoy a lot of sports, motor sports, cricket and football, all the great Aussie sports, and travel. My wife and I have been to many dozens of fantastic places together so that’s something we really enjoy doing.

”It’s nothing glamorous; we just like getting the job done, and the rewards aren’t necessarily obvious to everybody but they’re certainly obvious to us.”

from http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-fastest-guns-in-the-market-20091105-i0au.html

Happy Birthday to you Joy !!

As a surprise I arranged for Joy to go on a Joyride in a Tigermoth bi-plane, complete with the aerobatics “Adrenalin rush” package.

Here’s a photo from the cockpit.

PERSONAL assistants on the other side of the world are doing paperwork and administration for as little as $2 an hour for Queensland small businesses.

Overseas outsourcing is being taken to a new level over the internet, with businesses turning to online contractors to perform everything from IT to bookkeeping and accounting.

But the trend towards outsourcing, once the domain of big businesses such as banks, has alarmed unions and academics who fear it will slow wages growth and cost local jobs.

“Australian workers should be concerned by any moves to offshore jobs to cut labour costs, not only because it means fewer job opportunities at home but it undermines wages and conditions here,” an Australian Council of Trade Unions spokesman said.

“There are also question marks over whether quality control can be maintained through offshoring, and businesses need to be open with their customers that work is being performed outside of Australia.”

Mike O’Hagan, who founded MiniMovers but now runs a small business as an international business speaker and mentor, says he has employed a personal assistant living in the Philippines through website odesk.com for the past year, at first paying $US2 an hour but recently raising that wage to $US6 an hour.

The PA handles personal correspondence, his calendar and other administrative duties and stays in contact via email.

“That is eight times her local rate of pay,” Mr O’Hagan said. “That’s equal to about $4000 in Australia. She’s one happy little Vegemite.

“This is a job that I would have never employed an Australian to do. Being a worldwide business, I need a worldwide workforce.

“This is a massive change throughout the world. The world is just one big economy all connected together and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

But the ACTU strongly disagrees: “It is totally misleading for any businesses to pretend that they are offshoring to help people in developing countries. They should be honest that the only reason they are doing it is to boost their profits.”

More than 1500 Australians have signed on for work through oDesk, of 378,000 hopefuls worldwide.

Switchselect.com.au comparison website CEO Leon Hayes says he has sourced contractors through oDesk.

“To the people who are complaining: be proactive. Turn negative thoughts into positive and stop worrying about where your next job might come from and start your own small business,” Mr Hayes said.

His most recent job was done by a contractor in India for $US200. He says the same work would have cost him $5000 in Australia.

Mr Hayes pays writers between $US3 and $US4 an hour to collect news and rewrite it for his website.

“It has taken a year to find a group of six people to work very hard and deliver on time and on budget and we couldn’t find that in Australia,” he said. “I do employ an Australian writer who has worked for The Age and other places, but she is $A45 an hour.

“I don’t think it is morally wrong to outsource because it’s efficient and it gives the people actually applying through oDesk, and who have gone and bought themselves a cheap computer and put themselves through XYZ course, a job.”

Sunshine Coast-based www.imarket yoo.com marketing consultancy owner Luke Selway says he uses online outsourcing to mop up excess work or for technical jobs outside his expertise.

“From a small business perspective, any strategy to bring down costs, especially in this economic day and age . . . is quite useful,” Mr Selway said.

However, others raise concerns.

Author and Griffith University department of employment relations Associate Professor Bob Russell said global outsourcing might not be as cheap as it looks for employers in the long-term.

“There are security issues and trust issues so the costs of supervising this kind of work is much higher when it is outsourced,” Prof. Russell said.

“Companies would have to hire internal supervisors just to monitor outsourced workers. How unproductive is that?”

from http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,1,26295931-952,00.html