Offshoring Update: Summary of Outsell’s March 11, 2008 Webinar

Offshoring is a topic we receive numerous questions about, and the rate at which we receive those questions is increasing. To meet this demand for information, Outsell hosted a webinar on March 11, 2008, titled IM Offshoring: State of the Art. The webinar included quantitative data from our most recent benchmark research on information management (IM) functions, conducted in the fall of 2007. We also drew on previous years’ IM research to discover trends over time. Qualitative research included five interviews with organizations (financial services, professional services, and pharmaceutical companies) that currently offshore IM tasks. This report summarizes the webinar and contains:

- Our definition of offshoring and how it compares with outsourcing;
- Data on the prevalence of offshoring among corporate IM functions, and what types of offshoring they use;
- A poll of webinar participants to see how many are offshoring, and why;
- Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of using agencies versus “captive” firms;
- A look at offshoring challenges and solutions, including information from two case studies;
- Implications and imperatives for information managers.