When Dell decided some years ago to bring back home much of its customer support after complaints about service quality, it seemed perhaps to indicate limits to the off-shoring era. Other firms have followed, suggesting a new trend of ‘back-shoring’ customer support to the US and Europe. strategy+business, though, in Is Backshoring the New Offshoring? point out that the scale of this reversal is not very significant. In fact, with increasing profit pressures arising from the worsening economic conditions, it seems that off-shoring is continuing to become more prevalent in other functions, such as R&D.
Remember, though, that sound strategic business management requires keeping control of capabilities critical to competitive advantage .. we just need to be clear what those are!