When looking for a topic to post on, it never hurts to check out other blogs. And thus I discovered the brouhaha resulting from Steven Cohen’s post on his new job.
We work with outside research providers on occasion, but the relationship is very carefully managed and the value that our research group provides as opposed to external service providers is always communicated. As I’ve noted, we’re constantly working to market ourselves.
Nevertheless, there is always pressure to deliver services more cheaply, so we have been building up staff in lower-cost locations. Even here though, American and European researchers have advanced presentation skills, deep client relationships and a wealth of industry expertise, so it’s more of a partnership then a case of “Oh my God, those [insert nationality] are taking away chargeable* work from me!” Although I won’t deny that some of us had that very fear initially.
Do any of you have experience with outsourcing of library services, and what has the impact been (I refuse to use “impact” as a verb)?
* We have recoverability targets for our time, with the exact percentage varying based on level. Not meeting recoverability targets is grounds for a downgrade come performance review time.
Bonus link: Wikipedia’s poorly-cited article on Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), which I should edit one of these days. The “$17 billion by 2010″ comes from Evalueserve’s 2004 study “The Next Big Opportunity – Moving up the Value Chain – From BPO to KPO” (the “recent study” mentioned in the article). That report which “predicts that India will capture more than 70 percent of the KPO sector by 2010″? Evalueserve again, though I haven’t found the primary source yet.
Posted by Steven Kaye 
