While short and sweet and filled with a number of (now) obvious pieces of advice, a recent article over on CIO Insight on Nine Things No One Ever Told You [about offshoring] made two great points that many articles miss:
- Process Matters and
- It Takes Time to Get a Stable, Productive Process
often 18 to 24 months if you and your partner are new to outsourcing!
In other words, if this is your first time, expect that it will take two years to get the full extent of the payback which might not be as much as you expect after infrastructure investments, change management costs, travel, and rework are factored in (which will often be [much] more than you expect).
And process matters. Without sound processes and standards in place to keep the business running smoothly, it is more work to manage multiple relationships, each of which will function poorly without a strong foundation. So, if you still haven’t realized that the outsourcing craze has finally stopped and decide you want to chase after the runaway train long after it has left the station, remember this: Two years to turnaround. Ouch!