Gartner Research’s Linda Cohen has a better sense of humor and appreciation for absurdity than just about anybody else I’ve listened to in the analyst ranks. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that she would make the statement, “You have to stop outsourcing now.”
She said this during a presentation at Gartner’s Symposium ITxpo 2005, taking place this week at Disneyworld in Florida.
Why am I delighted by this comment? Because Ms. Cohen, along with co-author Allie Young, have just published Multisourcing, a new book about outsourcing.
According to this account by Dan Farber on ZDNet, Ms. Cohen’s point in advocating an end to outsourcing was that “too many companies have taken outsourcing to an extreme, heading offshore because it's faddish, juggling multiple contracts with incompetence and lacking sufficient governance discipline.”
The rundown by Mr. Farber includes eight “pervasive myths of outsourcing today.” For example, one myth is this:
Steady state: Believing that an outsourcing service will never need to change.
As author Gary Stern shared in this Sourcingmag.com case study, even a review of the contract can reap unexpected rewards.
I hope to get my hands on the Cohen-Young book as soon as it’s officially out to provide a review of my own.
