Jagdish Dalal, the Indian American owner and president of consulting firm JDalal Associates, has been named among the first 15 outsourcing professionals in the world to be certified by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP).

IAOP is a global, standard-setting organisation and advocate for the outsourcing profession. IAOP's global membership encompasses almost 250 organisations from around the world representing almost every industry segment and functional activity.

Jag (as he is popularly known) formed JDalal Associates, LLC in April 2002. JDalal Associates, LLC specializes in consulting in the field of information technology and business process outsourcing - with a special emphasis on offshore advantages for outsourcing.

Jag's deep experience as a business executive, who contracted for these services as well as his leadership experience in establishing outsourcing practice for some of the world's largest professional services companies, allow him to bring a unique perspective to consulting.

JDalal Associates clients include Fortune 500 financial services companies, major IT services provider, large utility service providers, new companies entering the BPO marketplace and software companies specialising in tools for outsourcing.

Prior to setting up his own venture, Dalal was the chief information officer of Carrier Corporation (a $9 billon division of United Technologies Corp). In this position, he managed a $200-million budget with 50 percent of it spent on outsourcing to service providers globally. He has also held senior leadership positions at Xerox, Unisys, Data General, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Teledyne.

Jag was also a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers outsourcing business.

In 1994, as vice-president of information management at Xerox, Jag created the strategy and led the team responsible for a $3.2-billion global outsourcing contract for EDS. The strategy and development of this major contract was documented and is now part of a Harvard Business School case study.

He is a noted speaker and writes extensively on outsourcing, offshore outsourcing, shared services and information technology management.

Jag's series of lectures on BPO have been widely recognized across the globe.

Jag has received numerous awards and recognition for his contributions in the field of Information technology management and outsourcing.

He was a finalist for the World Outsourcing Achievement Award and was honoured at the World Outsourcing Conference in 2001.

Jag has also been recognised as one of the "2003 sourcing pros to know" by the leading sourcing magazine, iSource.

Most recently, Jag was asked to lead a team of judges to select Global Outsourcing 100 companies for publication in the Fortune magazine.