Globalization is an ongoing trend, one of whose byproducts is offshoring. We define offshoring as the shifting of technical support delivery around the globe.
It is challenging enough for many organizations to maintain a balance between making support available to employees and customers, and ensuring, from a corporate perspective, that support is a worthwhile investment. Globalization expands the scope of this challenge not only among a wider range of locations, but also among a wider range of culture. Indeed, it is the cultural, more than technological, impact of offshoring that governs whether organizations are able to identify the right types of support operations to move overseas, and the most feasible locations for these operations.
Offshoring isn’t a simple matter of exchanging higher-paying white-collar jobs in North America for comparable, but lower-paying, white-collar jobs elsewhere. As critical decisions are made about providing support overseas, organizations must give support professionals opportunities to identify advantages and risks, outline appropriate support strategies and proactively manage changes that are likely to result from offshoring.
Whether your organization has already chosen to move all or part of its support operations overseas, or is in the midst of researching the possibility of doing so, there are key drivers that underpin your organization’s decisions about offshoring technical support.
What factors are causing companies to address globalization and consider offshoring?
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Economic drivers — organizations are facing a lack of affordable resources for support and are looking increasingly hard at the cost of support and service delivery
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Technology Infrastructures–In the past, infrastructure concerns would have been barriers to outsourcing. Today, these barriers are becoming less of an issue as companies that move support operations overseas, and the countries where they outsource to, step up the level of investment required.
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Changes in the Global Labor Market–Many regions of the world are producing young professionals with the necessary technical skills needed for technical support. Many within this emerging labor force combine the ability to communicate in English with know-how in resolving technical issues.
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Reduced North American leadership advantage–Until the late 1990s, North America was acknowledged as the “thought” leader in information technology, as well as technical support. This leadership position began to change in the early to mid-1990s. With the global growth of the internet, which supports a reduction in the cost, and an increase in the speed, of communications, North America’s competitive advantage is shrinking, as bright ideas can come from any place in the world.
Editor’s Note: This excerpt is taken from a HDI Strategic Advisory Board white paper entitled “The Offshoring of Technical Support: A Discussion Document.” For more information or a copy of this white paper contact Sophie Klossner at sklossner@thinkhdi.com
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