Statistician defends his outsourcing figures

You said the reception of your initial report of 3.3 million services jobs going offshore by 2015 had been frustrating at times. How so?
What was frustrating is that people instantly gravitated to that 2015 number and in many cases reported it like it was the number today. People were portraying that number like it was almost the number today, which overstated what was going on.

Were there actually cases where people talked about 3.3 million jobs going overseas but didn't add the qualifier?
There was some of that.

What about the response to your latest report? Can you summarise how that's been treated?
You know, because we put in more incremental numbers and we put in some of the percentages of what was lost, it seems to have muted some of the debate.

A big part of that is because of what's happening in Iraq. The coverage of the offshore issue is directly in proportion to how much Iraqi coverage there is. When it looked like the war was going well in the January-February time frame, offshore coverage was way up. Since then, it's way down.

Do you expect that it will come back to be a significant issue?
I don't think so. The clients have stopped announcing what they are doing, which is minimising triggers for press.

IBM seems to have stopped talking about outsourcing when it describes what is essentially outsourcing work. It talks about "business process transformation services" as opposed to "business transformation outsourcing".
Right.

Do you think that fits into that pattern of outsourcing being kind of a four-letter word these days?
I think so. I think they are also trying to differentiate themselves.

Right. But you are saying overall there is just less willingness for companies to discuss what they are doing?
People aren't doing any less offshore work but they are sure as hell talking about it less.

Are your clients saying that that is becoming a policy for them?
Oh, yeah. For sure.