Do you offshore?

For the past few months, I have been keeping track of the calls and emails I get from companies offering their offshore marketing research services to us. To my amazement, it has averaged 7 contacts per week. We are a moderate size research company. I can’t imagine how many times the larger firms are contacted. Most of the contacts are from India, but we also get the occasional contact from the Philippines or one of the Eastern European countries.

They use to primarily pitch the backroom operations of survey programming, data processing and tabulation, and occasionally phone interviewing. But these days they are also aggressively pitching statistical analysis, modeling, report writing and data analysis.

I can understand how offshoring of programming and data processing might make economic sense for the larger firms (who would keep a skeletal crew in the U.S. for these tasks). But for us, it just doesn’t make sense. We especially need data tabulation capabilities in-house. Without them, we would not be able to respond quickly to last minute “what ifs” from our analysts or clients. Sure, we could go back to the offshore company with special requests, but we would lose valuable time. In today’s pace, that’s time we can’t afford to lose.

I am, however, astounded to think companies are offshoring analysis and report writing. After all, the report is your final product. It is your depth of knowledge and insights that the client is paying for. Your local experiences with the product category and the culture also help craft your report. I just don’t understand how some stranger in India can produce an actionable report.

Am I missing the point? Are you having success with offshoring or have you faced disasters?