Very often, I speak to people who tend to generalize certain behavioral characteristics of people in the countries where we have offices. People speak about ‘the Indians’ or ‘the eastern Europeans’. In our business, the cultural differences have a major impact on the customer’s perceptions about the feasibility of outsourcing for their company.

There are many ghost stories going around in the market. Especially India is perceived in a negative way by many people. As India is the major outsourcing destination, it also receives the most publicity. If some offshoring initiatives don’t succeed (and this is reality, nobody in our business will deny it), people tend to think in general terms ‘outsourcing to India never works’ or even ‘outsourcing doesn’t work at all’. And if one hears or reads one story about a negative offshoring initiative, people tend to make conclusions that it can also never work for them. (more…)