I once heard someone say (actually, that someone happened to be me), "Offshore outsourcing is dead!" But before you jump off your seat, let me clarify what I mean by dead. I mean dead not with reference to its importance, relevance or future; I mean dead with reference to its character – it is devoid of vibrancy, excitement, creation and innovation.
When offshore outsourcing emerged into the limelight decades ago, it was a disruptive innovation, challenging convention and redefining what could be done where, by whom and at what cost. It created a cheaper labour pipe, through which any transactional, discrete piece of work could flow. Developments since then have resulted in the pipe growing fatter (so that a larger volume of work can flow through the system at a given point), having an ability to accommodate different types of flow within (applications, infrastructure, business processes), and in some cases, an increased rate of flow (how much work can be transferred to or done by offshore in a given amount of time).
