
Whether you develop outsourcing programs in the US, the UK or somewhere far offshore, you want certain features from the outsourcing location you choose. However, many of these features: level of unemployment, education, stable weather conditions, support by local governments, safety .... are outside of your control. Worse still, recent changes in weather and politics may make these features less certain.
Your outsourcing location needs to be some place where your operations will work, all the time. However, just about any costal (or river front) city could have huge outages due to the weather. Even if the area is not surrounded by water, if there are hills or mountains in the area, a major change in precipitation could do a lot more damage to local roads and increase the number of days where travel to work is problematic.
In 2013, the wrath of mother nature may take a back seat to the wrath of Washington. As federal budget cuts are made, local transportation and infrastructure will suffer. If it busses and light rail suffer, a once convenient location may become suddenly isolated. Longer term, areas where great education was a key attraction could change dramatically over the period of just a couple of contacts. This doesn't mean that outsourcing will suddenly cease to be a valuable tool, but it does mean that you need to forget your assumptions about a location, and do your homework!

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