Canadian firms wary of offshoring
In the midst of the flurry of jobs heading for other shores, Canadian businesses have yet to warm up to the idea of sending work offshore to low-cost countries, says the Conference Board of Canada. It also goes to say that 58% of companies surveyed indicated that “they were not offshoring any businesses or functions.”
The information is contained in a report, “Will Canadian Businesses Sink or Swim?” involving responses from 132 business. Companies the Conference Board sent the surveys out to, were considered most likely to engage in business process outsourcing (BPO) based on their size and nature of business. Inconsistencies in the response however suggested that the decision makers behind these companies have yet to give adequate thought and understanding to offshoring and its implications.
Breakdown of companies considered most likely to offshore are:
- manufacturers – 26%
- high technology firms, including software development – 16%
- maintenance – 15%
- user support – 13%
The survey also delineates the size of offshore investments, considered small at less than $100,000 a contract, with future investments also projected to be low 39% of respondents have indicated that whatever planned investment in offshoring stands at less than $100,000 while 31% planned their investment to fall between $100,000 and $1M.
Factors working against decision-making in offshoring are in-house barriers such as bad publicity. Main and most frequent in favor of offshoring is cost savings, on the other hand.
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