ABSTRACT
Obviously, if there were only benefits, more companies would seek to outsource their processes to lower-cost countries. This chapter seeks to report on the reasons why offshoring knowledge work has become such an integral part of the American economy and the challenges that companies should consider before making the conversion. The chapter is written as a guide for future CEOs (or other senior managers) and seeks to answer the question that leaders should be asking: “Can offshoring
knowledge work increase shareholder value?” At the end of this chapter, we will introduce a case study of Best Buy and Staples and show how one company that has announced that it has offshored IT work has better year-over-year performance using the DuPont model of the return on net worth (RONW) than the other.
