Next week I will be on a panel at the Global LPO Conference titled How Can You Outsource Patent Prosecution and Litigation Support with the Cost Benefits of Low Cost Countries but the Quality of US Solutions?  One of the immediate questions that I will address on the panel is whether this is the right question to ask?  There are going to be qualitative differences in the work product received from domestic support and overseas support both because of cultural differences and because of the distance gap.  That difference does not mean that one work product is necessarily going to be superior to another.  It’s just that in some way it is going to be different.  It is the same in principle as moving a call center from Kansas City to Bangalore, for example.  All things being otherwise equal in the capacity of individuals to handle customer service calls, any attempt to make Bangalore be just like Kansas City, except that it costs less to operate, is going to fail.  The question really is making Bangalore work for the needs of the customers when they make a service call routed to Bangalore. The same is the case with Global LPO – It isn’t necessarily about emulating the US solutions; it is about having the quality to fill the business need of the associated customer in the US given that in some way, however intangible, the work product is going to be different.

(Image credit: Hemera)