The Myths of Outsourcing

At last week's Southeastern University Printing and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC) in Nashville, opening keynote speaker Ray Chambers, of the Chambers Management Group, debunked some of the outsourcing myths commonly cited by organizations to justify eliminating their in-plants. Most organizations say they want to outsource to cut costs, Chambers said, yet little research has been done to validate whether outsourcing actually brings savings.

“I have not, in my research, found a single study [meeting academic standards for research design] that supports the notion that outsourcing a non-academic support service decreases costs or improves quality,” he stated.

Often, organizations use “research” offered by vendors and special interest groups. But these self-serving statistics do not hold up to the standards of academic evaluation, which require peer review and follow sound research design principles, he said.

“The legitimate research suggests that decisions to cut off pieces of organizations based on these biased and self-serving claims have not been successful,” he said. “That is, they do not reduce costs and/or improve services.”

Read more of what Chambers told the SUPDMC group in the November issue of IPG. And check out Chambers' latest blog entry on the legacy of Steve Jobs here.