Last year’s highly controversial results, published by CIO Magazine produced a year long global discussion on the progress, issues and deficiencies of the fifty offshore outsourcing destinations: the twenty-five safest and the twenty-five most dangerous. “The realities of an unsafe world have changed many outsourcing decisions,” says Wilson. “The responsibility of insuring that data and processes remain safe cannot be conveyed to the supplier on your behalf.” As the savings gap between India and other world locations narrows to less than ten percent, the value proposition is tempered by potential threats and gains.

If 2009 was the “Year of Outsourcing Dangerously”, what does 2010 hold for the offshore industry raging in flux? The annual call is out for all corporate development officers by the highly regarded “Black Book of Outsourcing” through mid-March. Black Book gathers offshore user experiences, realities and perceptions on each of over one hundred and twenty regional pockets of both precarious and assured business continuity.

“The challenging component of outsourcing governance has shifted to mitigating downstream risk by determining the best location choice for their organizational processes”, relays Scott Wilson, co-author of the study. “The reality is terrorist attacks, typhoons, crime and corruption and inadequate infrastructures may well disrupt your corporate operations via offshore outsourcers if you are not informed of where your transactions are being transferred.”

The aim of the annual study is to rank major metropolitan hubs of outsourcing, as similar concerns are shared when assessing the safety and security of outsourced operations. This research is aimed with the following scope of work:

• to analyze the downstream risks of offshoring outsourcing in 2010;
• to solicit supplier side risk assessments;
• to seek insight and progress updates from various global locations once deemed too dangerous to invest in;
• to develop a multi-criteria decision model for outsourcing buyer decision makers concerning the often unseen ramifications of offshoring downstream risks, and
• to provide insight into the downstream risks of both established and emerging offshore destinations of various outsourcing services including technology, BPO and managed services.

Twelve key performance indicators are employed in this perception survey of the world’s business leaders: Capitalism, Corruption, Politics, Currency, Personal Crime, Infrastructure, Environment, Terrorism, Legal System, Climate, Social Oppression, and Labor Unrest.

Over 650,000 individuals are invited to participate annually (including C officers of the Fortune 2000, Inc 500, Russell 3000, institutional members and officers of various professional organizations, subscribers of our media partners and previously validated survey participants). Non-invitation receiving participants must complete a verifiable profile, utilize valid corporate email address and are then included as well. Over 26,000 users were validated in the 2009 ranking process of Black Book surveys.