Monday, January 26, 2009

Do you Offshore: Part Two

Last week I wrote about offshoring of backroom marketing research functions. In that post, I mentioned the frequency with which I am contacted regarding a request to send our business offshore.

Ironically, the number of requests I receive has increased substantially this week. Anyone who read my post last week would probably realize I am not a fan of offshoring. So why did the prospecting for my business increase? I am guessing it is driven by two things:

Bots have found my posting. Their users have incorrectly identified me as a good target for offshoring.
We noticed traffic to my blog from countries where much outsourcing happens has increased. So I suspect these people found my post, but again failed to pick up my negative tone toward offshoring.

It will be interesting to see what happens after this post.

2 comments:

Adam Jolley said...

We get tons of calls from various vendors looking for us to offshore. Each one pitches the monetary savings and promises constant availability regardless of timezone.

I think being a vendor ourselves makes it virtually impossible to offshore. Since nobody sells on price (wink, wink) the only bit that separates us from another vendor is customer service. Off shoring essentially just means we're passing the buck and offering nothing substantial back to our clients. If there was anything we'd consider with off shoring, I'd say programming online surveys or perhaps tabulations.

Ken Roberts said...

Hi Adam,

The number of calls and emails we receive about offshoring have increased substantially since these blog postings. I am glad to see you have the same integrity that I do. I should also clarify that offshoring is what I oppose. We do outsource, but very nominal work such as coding open-ends. However, we prefer keeping that work closer to home.


Ken