Corporate Outsourcing...

Offshoring's toughest moments are often encountered while attempting to manage an IT outsourcing program at a facility that is unprepared for that particular type of work. As described below, chances of offshoring success are improved by matching the type of program with the lifecycle of the offshore IT facility.

So much hype surrounds offshore outsourcing that it is easy to believe that a merchant call center is prepared to implement almost any type of outsourcing program given to it.

Offshore outsourcing failures are most likely to be experienced by U.S. companies with few similar successful independent offshore outsourcing efforts to their credit and with no previous track record with the facilities where they are attempting to place work.

Highly risk-adverse U.S. firms often find that they have no offshore alternative but to move work to large multifacility chains, where prices are often 50 percent higher and service levels lower than at competing outfits. This option might be feasible for firms that are not highly focused on cost control. However, it might not be appropriate for midsized companies that are attempting to control costs while not sacrificing service levels orcustomer satisfaction.

In the last two years, several high-profile call center chains with operations in India have experienced major program failures. Both U.S. owned and offshore-based call center firms have gone through launch failures that resulted in dislocations for their clients, who had to quickly make alternate arrangements.