The Ugly And Dangerous Prejudice Against Stupidity

Bob Evans discussed a prejudice against outsourcing in the March 25th issue of Information Week.

Click here to read article

Here is my response:

Mr. Evans:

I think you named your March 25th article, "The Ugly And Dangerous Prejudice Against Outsourcing", incorrectly. You should have called it, "The Ugly And Dangerous Prejudice Against Stupidity". You made some good points, but I don't think there really is unfounded prejudice against outsourcing.

American corporations have made some really poor outsourcing decisions and are just now starting to realize the real cost to their organizations. I've had horrific customer service experiences with Dell and American Express lately, both of which have outsourced at least part of their customer service. I've spent hours and hours on the phone with both of these companies trying to straighten out what should be relatively simple customer service issues. What saves them money costs the consumer time and that is not good business.

We should outsource if it makes sense, but we should also be very careful about outsourcing areas of our business, especially if they are customer-facing. What good is saving a few bucks if it costs you the loyalty of your customers? We as Americans don't need to be protectionists, we just need to make better decisions.

-Chris Fuller
Chicago Technologies
www.chitech.net