Remember our recent post “Caught in the xeno-bamia crossfire, these are dangerous times for the outsourcing industry“? Well, our new survey on the toxic “O” word has resoundingly proven that negative politics really does sway opinions, as an overwhelming majority of American enterprises want the word scrapped, which is in stark contract to European firms, who are largely happy to keep it:

Now look what you’ve done, President Obama! In all seriousness, Europeans are obviously a lot less bothered by terminology – there is simply a lot less toxicity surrounding the term. The big question is whether these feelings will die down after the US election, or whether the “O” is forever poisoned unto perpetuity? The plot thickens… stay tuned for more







Research, Insight, and Advice for Buyers of Global Services
HfS Sourcing Executive Council
HfS and the Future of Outsourcing
Smart Governance: Managing the GBS Landscape
HfS PriceIndicator: For Precision Sourcing Decisions
Banking and Financial Services Sourcing Landscape
HfS and the Healthcare Industry Landscape
Global Service Providers Target Pharma and Biotech
Social Business and Disruptive Technologies

One Comment
The “O” word misperception started long before Obama became a Senator so no need to point fingers at him. It drives me crazy that many have misused “outsourcing” when then mean “offshoring”. However,because of this, many years ago we decided to use “global sourcing” for our MBA class and Advisory Board at Marquette University.
Kate Kaiser
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[...] has bad connotations, thanks mainly to the political campaigns in US. When Horsesforsources did a survey to find out what people thought about the term, this is what they [...]