Call it yet another example of the gap between business and academia. Despite making it to the headlines the world over, outsourcing is still not a mainstream management topic. For the management academia, outsourcing is still a trend, a good business practice at best.

For the thousands of managers in business organizations trying to make outsourcing work for global corporations, it is often a challenge to get even some basic framework. As our story on the failure of large deals in this issue tells you, many a time, people have entered outsourcing contracts without knowing the basics.

This situation has given rise to an industry by itself. Outsourcing consultants, who have stepped in to fill that gap, provide some of the knowledge and experience. But engaging a consultant is often a late step in the overall process, and deciding on a consultant needs some basic knowledge. Many a time, companies looking at outsourcing do a parallel evaluation of strategies and offshore locations, while short-listing vendors, though actual vendor selection is often the last step. Few consultants have knowledge on all aspects.

To start with, some basic knowledge is not a bad idea for many. But today, that is restricted to Google searches or research firm’s reports. Through these sources, however, it is primarily numbers and facts that one can get, which is of very little practical use from a micro business perspective.

That has given rise to many how-to books on outsourcing. Many of them are positioned as the pre-consultant stage for an outsourcing buyer. As in any area, some of them are good in explaining the fundamentals based on the experience of writers, some are not so good, while others are pure nonsense.

In the Bookstores

In 2005 alone, at least four books on the topic have been released, each one with a little different positioning. The Black Book of Outsourcing, released earlier this year is a book that tries to cover almost everything-from outsourcing advice for buyers, to business advice for vendors, and even tips for job seekers. Out of these, the most useful section is the vendor directory. It even ranks outsourcing companies, based on the rankings done by consultants, industry associations, and publications. It may not be a coincidence that all the surveys by publications that it has referred to are ones carried out by publications from CyberMedia, the publisher of Global Outsourcing, including a survey of top Indian BPOs carried out by bpOrbit, the predecessor of Global Outsourcing.

The latest to hit the shelves is a book called The Offshore Nation-by consultants Atul Vashistha and Avinash Vashistha, the founders of the offshore consulting firm neoIT. This book is somewhere between a how-to book and a trends book. The authors claim that their book not only talks about how to outsource, but also tells the reader why companies should outsource. “The Offshore Nation was written to help executives in leading organizations better understand why they need to look at services globalization as a strategic component of their business. Companies that do not embrace services globalization over the next decade will be has-beens,” says Atul Vashistha, co-author of the book and CEO of neoIT.

“We also wanted the book to be insightful and useful for business leaders, BPO and ITO services managers, educators and students of services globalization. Readers will come away with a greater understanding of how to leverage the strategic trends of IT and business-process outsourcing; the impact that offshoring can have on services delivery and cost; sources of reliable information for developing offshoring strategies; and best practices in the offshoring lifecycle, and best locations for offshoring.”

Take your Pick

The Offshore Nation: The Rise of Services Globalization by Atul Vashistha, Avinash Vashistha (June 2005) Outsourcing Insourcing: Can Money be Made from New Relationship Opportunities? by Per V Jenster, Henrick Stener Pedersen, Patricia Plackett, David Hussey (2005) Global Outsourcing: Executing an Onshore, Nearshore or Offshore Strategy by Marcia Robinson, et al (April 2005) The Black Book of Outsourcing: How to Manage the Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities by Douglas Brown, Scott Wilson (2005) Outsourcing to India by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary (April, 2004) What’s this India Business? Offshoring, Outsourcing, and the Global Services Revolutionby Paul Davies Offshore Outsourcing: Path to New Efficiencies in IT And Business Processes by Nandu, Dr Thondavadi, George Albert Strategic Outsourcing: A Structured Approach to Outsourcing Decisions and Initiatives by Maurice F. Greaver The Outsourcing Revolution: Why it Makes Sense and How to Do it Right by Michael F Corbett; Hardcover (Sep 2004) Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI and Best Practices by Marcia Robinson, Ravi Kalakota (October 2004) Turning Lead into Gold: The Demystification of Outsourcing by Peter Bendor-Samuel (2000, 2002)

While the consultant in Vashistha brothers (yes, they are brothers) made them write the book, for a few like Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, it was the desire to fulfill a need. Kobayashi-Hillary’s book, Outsourcing to India, is focused, as the name suggests, on the how-tos of outsourcing to India. “About six years ago, I was sent to Bangalore to help establish a software center for the French bank SG. When I checked the bookstores for information on India and outsourcing, I found many books on the theory of outsourcing-particularly IT outsourcing-and many on India. But somehow, no writer had combined the subjects in a book, which I found strange as the India outsourcing boom was taking off.” As they say, when you want to write a book that has not yet been written, write it.

It was probably a similar thought that drove Paul Davies to write his book, What’s this India Business? Davies, who had spent some time in India as head of an IT company in the country earlier, used his knowledge and experience to address the information gaps in that area in the West.

Not a New Phenomenon

Though 2005 has seen a number of such books hitting the market, the first book on outsourcing in our compilation was published way back in 2000. The book by Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group, Turning Lead into Gold: The Demystification of Outsourcing was a book on the basic concepts of outsourcing. Arguably, it still remains the best book for a starter, whose objective is to understand outsourcing, and doing it right by selecting the right processes, the right metrics, and the right vendors. Many of Bendor-Samuel’s tips about SLAs and deliverables look so prophetic today, when many deals have failed because of gaps that he has specifically advised to avoid.

Since then, books have been published at regular intervals. Needless to say, not every book is equally useful.

Today, when outsourcing has become the hottest global change to follow, books like Tom Friedman’s World is Flat, Clyde Prestowitz’s The Three Billion New Capitalists, Richard Florida’s The light of the Creative Class, and Ashutosh Seshabalaya’s Rising Elephant which address the broader outsourcing phenomenon in a much fascinating manner, the how-to books often compete with them for shelf space in bookstores. The World is Flat, for example, is a bestseller.

The trend will only become more visible. Books targeted at outsourcing managers will now have to focus more on the practical side, rather than on philosophies and information. The fact that today, many outsourcing professionals who have experience in offshoring and outsourcing are available to hire, a consultant’s business is threatened. The books will now have to change with time.