Quality Concerns with Offshore Outsourcing

Came across this article in CIO.com on the drivers of offshore based outsourcing and also what some of the respondents had to say after their experience. Clearly, service quality is an area which stands out across application services offshoring  (24%) and IT infrastructure offshoring (29%).

What this also means is that aside of the fact that a quarter to a third of the customers not satisfied with the quality of services, they probably did not put in enough measures, governance and enablers to bring this as a area for continuous performance measurement with their service providers. Clearly the service provider would be motivated to address areas that are part of their performance and since this is not being done largely, the gaps in performance are reported by so many.

Now, I am not suggesting that this is easy or that there would not have been issues, but that both sides (customer and service provider) need to acknowledge and accept this as an area of client value and put measures to track, report and action on.

This is also one of the key areas which industry needs to get into as more and more work moves outside the country from where work is being outsourced. What worked (in terms of governance and measurement) with in-shore outsourcing couple of decades back will not necessarily work with offshored outsourcing. A strong understanding of these would help enterprises engage with their service providers to ensure that the latter are driven on these areas of concerns that many have.