Offshoring: Don't shoot the messenger

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When does outsourcing work?

I have worked on projects that have been outsourced to India a number of times. There are times when it makes sense and times when it doesn't.

For example, outsourcing product development does work if you have the luxury of writing very detailed functional specifications. However, if you code from requirements...as many companies unfortunately do...it certainly is not going to work. The trick is to be as detailed as possible prior to handing the project off.

However, outsourcing any service the relies on a good understanding of your written or spoken native language (i.e. American English, British English, whatever) is simply not going to work as an outsourced project, whether it is transcription, customer support, or recruiting. The language and cultural differences are simply too great.

For example, last year I managed a content collection and re-publishing project for a media research firm and the data entry component was outsourced to an Indian firm. Though the content was fairly general and the transcribers college educated, I encountered endless quality problems, from poor use of punctuation and capitalization rules to not understanding that the word "turkey" can be a country or a bird depending on its context. As a result, the company had to invest in twice the amount of local QA staff to compensate and I was never really happy with the end product. I can only imagine the chaos that would result if I had required specialized transcription services.

And just a couple of weeks ago I got a supposedly local call from a headhunter whose accent was so heavy I could only make out a word other than "PeopleSoft." Though its in my own interest as a freelance consultant to take all calls from recruiters, I simply hung-up out of frustration. My bet is he was calling from India and piggy backing on a local line.

Now I am no advocate of the wholesale outsourcing we're experiencing. It's costing local jobs and delivering a generally inferior and often annoying service. I'm just saying there are cases where it does work under certain circumstances.

Posted by: joshdcohen@...   Posted on: 08/24/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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