* Cultures can be barriers to offshore outsourcing
Some of the funniest business stories I have heard are those stories about a company taking its product into a foreign country and completely missing language and cultural issues in the process. International expansion of American companies has produced many such stories. One would think the lessons have been learned.
A recent article in CMO Magazine highlighted the issues of making a Web site viable in different countries. The article discusses the international expansion of Match.com as a backdrop for the problems that can occur if a Web site is simply translated. Initial translations of the Match.com site were not producing the desired results. The conclusion was that it was not enough to translate the Web site; the real meaning of the site had to be determined and then put into the local language. This localization process needs to take into account local customs, trends and slang to be truly effective.
Should we expect the cultural problems to be any less troublesome to the operations side of a business using offshoring or a foreign-based outsourcing provider? I have seen corporate culture affect an outsourcing relationship. I started my career at EDS, and we always had to be aware of how the strong corporate culture of the “Ross Perot EDS” would affect our customers. If corporate culture can have that effect, the language and cultural issues that cross borders can surely play a major role.
The time spent on figuring cost savings and defining service levels leaves little time for other important issues to be considered in making the outsourcing or offshoring decision, but the impact of culture and language needs to be carefully examined. For example, it is not always enough that the provider has English-speaking employees. This can be no more effective than the Web site translation discussed above. Real communication requires understanding, not just proper syntax.
A creative solution to the language and culture problem was highlighted in a recent article about a situation where reverse outsourcing was used. Here a Native American-owned U.S. company performs part of the business process work for a China-based BPO company that is itself employed by a U.S. business. Employees of Lakota Express check the accuracy of electronic documents transcribed in China by workers who understand English, but often have difficulty deciphering Americans’ handwriting. While labor is cheaper in China, the need for cultural affinity demanded that a key part of the process be handled by American workers.
If you are in the process of negotiating an offshoring contract, you will certainly be spending considerable time on statements of work, service-level agreements, governance issues and cost savings calculations. It would be wise to dedicate some time and thought to cultural issues as well. By retaining certain steps of a business process in-house or by creatively using reverse outsourcing, cultural and language issues can be overcome. They should not be overlooked.
