In “The Cost of Outsourcing Is All Over the Map,” Steve Mezak provides a useful set of questions to address when choosing the possible location for your service work — which may end up being offshore.
He concludes that you should probably “select a region first and then source vendors in the region.”
I’d say, you should probably do research for multiple parts of the world (including domestic solutions) and use the information you glean to help formulate the priorities for your sourcing. For example, if it’s never occurred to you to worry about familiarity with Western business practices, since it’s always been something you’ve taken for granted, you can use what you’ve learned about various regions to frame the discussion you have internally about the importance of that familiarity on the work you need done.
