Recently, my colleague Juliana went to the IAOP Outsourcing World Summit in Miami. When she came back we started talking about outsourcing in general, its new trends and the geographic skill specialization around the world and the subject of U.S. domestic sourcing was brought up – as it often does in our office, since we are strong supporters (Anyone remembers our Ahilia’s 1st ever US Domestic Sourcing 2013 conference? – formerly known as Momentum). Juliana went on to announce that IAOP actually had just formed its first domestic sourcing chapter, which was great news to us as they will be a great resource to help educate buyers on the domestic sourcing market. However the fact that the chapter will focus on globally all-encompassing domestic sourcing (i.e. China to China, India to India) dilutes the focus as each region has very different issues when it comes to their own domestic sourcing that don’t necessarily overlap with each other. As a result, it will be difficult for US domestic sourcing providers to get the support they really need and will have to seek avenues for advocacy and promotion of the industry in the US.
There is a clear need for a US domestic sourcing organization to start in the US in order to support and address issues faced by the many domestic sourcing players. This organization could also provide momentum to the US government, which really needs to start investing in the knowledge services industry at large.
So why does the U.S. need to invest in US domestic sourcing? You will find compelling argument in Amrita Joshi’s article titled “Time for U.S. Government to Invest in IT and BPO Domestic Sourcing”
act, it is an “easy” way to provide high skilled jobs to depressed rural areas with far less starting investment than say manufacturing which is the current focus of the Obama administration but in reality does not create that many jobs because technology has replaced many of the job functions. It is time to give IT and BPO services a turn.
Would you be interested in joining a US domestic sourcing organization if one was started?