Bad Press Apparently Can't Dent Offshore Outsourcing

LAS VEGAS -- If an informal attendee poll at an outsourcing conference is any indication, negative press and protests are having little impact on CEO's use of offshore IT labor.

According to a survey conducted by moderators during a seminar here at the Gartner Outsourcing Summit Tuesday, 86% of respondents said negative publicity wouldn't slow their offshoring plans. Only 5% said bad press would cause them to delay an offshoring strategy by more than six months.

The poll represented about 150 buyers of offshore IT-outsourcing services.

It indicated that service buyers consider the use of offshore labor in lower-cost countries such as India to be a mainstream tactic. Only 5% of the respondents said they had no plans to move work offshore. Successful past experiences with projects may be what's encouraging execs to expand their offshore projects. Only 11% of those polled said past offshore projects didn't meet their expectations.