Companies Flock to Outsourcing Consultants as World’s Economy Spirals

19 February 2009: Silicon Valley, CA (PRWEB) February 18, 2009 -- As businesses reel from layoffs, delete technology budgets and process disruptions, the hot commodity in structuring internal recoveries are being found in external outsourcing advisors, according to The Black Book of Outsourcing's research division. The fifth annual Black Book "Top Outsourcing Advisors" report released today compiles the unbiased client experiences and latest trends impacting industry consultants. The complete study and user polling of outsourcing-centric consulting firms is available gratis to survey participants now at http://www.theblackbookofoutsourcing.com/resourceslinks.htm. "Where the past trend in outsourcing advice was often to ask too late and in reactionary mode, a steep majority of executives polled report a keen reliance on external experts to drive corporate recovery through the global recession," says Scott Wilson, partner of Brown-Wilson Group and co-author of "The Black Book of Outsourcing". First and foremost, reports Black Book, outsourcing advisors are being engaged to dismantle the current decision making gridlock. "In a time and economy where outsourcing should be making grand leaps of growth, significant negative events and conditions have discouraged executives from pulling the outsourcing trigger to cost savings and process improvements," adds Wilson. Most notably, of the survey's 2,529 respondents who have utilized management consultants, law firms, and offshoring advisors in the past twenty-four months, the biggest factors of outsourcing industry stagnation are:

• Confusion from recent events proving offshore outsourcing too risky (97% of respondents)
• Concern for high unemployment in their home countries/US-UK (94%)
• Frustration from offshore and onshore suppliers' ambulance-chasing (91%)
• Snowballing protectionism (90%)
• Search for viable, cost-effective alternatives to offshore outsourcing (90%)
• Watch and see behavior to protect corporate assets from heightened offshore risks (90%)

"Clients of outsourcing, current and prospective, are going to rely heavily on supplier-agnostic consultants to recover from this decision paralysis, as there have been compounding issues that need innovative, careful advisement." The top ten full-service (all domain spectrum) advisors for 2009: TPI, Datamonitor/Ovum/Orbys, Equaterra, Alsbridge, PA Consulting, Avasant, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Gartner, Everest Group and Hackett Group, while rising BPO consultancy Avasant topped the BPO consulting category. Two hundred and forty advisory firms received qualified client input in this year's Black Book study for consideration and ranking from twenty outsourcing advisory-specific key performance indicators. Black Book recognized as the only independent polling organization of true outsourcing client experience accepts no advertising, entry or application fees or depends on panel judging. Source: PR Web