It was interesting. They both knew their topics and were able to speak to the pitfalls of outsourcing, as well as the benefits. When asked about political cries for punitive taxation of outsourcing, they pointed out that in some cases operations are outsourced or offshored within the US as part of a larger follow-the-sun service strategy, and that often a company that outsources will create new jobs in-country.
My company outsources, and the company we outsource to turns around and subcontracts part of the service level agreement to another company. It makes communication difficult. I asked about such an arrangement. Their ears perked up and they held forth for at least twenty minutes.
Basically, the answer is to plan ahead of time. Many companies turn to outsourcing because of the savings appeal, and they want to move as quickly as possible to get the labor arbitrage most often associated with outsourcing. As the man from IBM pointed out, however, if the processes being outsourced are broken, outsourcing won't fix them, and can in fact make fixing them more difficult.
It's an interesting topic, it's where my head is right now, but I'm not sure it's the career path I want. One thing is for sure though - there's a lot of work, and a lot of money to be made, in the outsourcing and offshoring market.
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