If you want a job doing....outsource it? I think not

I've just read an article in PR Week on outsourcing PR services...much like banks outsource their call centres and phone companies send their 'help' desks abroad (note the nuance). If you're in the UK, you may vaguely recall this article from the 6th March issue, but the copy only just landed on my desk so bear with me...

So I'm thinking. And I'm thinking. And I still wonder...why?

Cost savings apart (and short term at that), I remember a wave of companies that suddenly realised that things weren't necessarily working out so well and customers were abandoning them because of language barriers, a lack of appreciation for service level expectations and a feeling that there wasn't someone nearby to offer support. As a result, insourcing became the new outsourcing.

In the PR industry, an agency thrives or dies on its service levels. Even those that position at the top end, and take pride in getting under the skin of their clients to provide really meaty business-led advice, still need to be service-orientated and able to handle the basics at the end of the day. This is how we are most often judged...on the results we deliver through the media. More to the point, junior staff rise through the ranks based on understanding and experiencing the whole gamut of operations. I remember the monthly grind of cutting and sticking (straight please!) clippings for coverage books, and I see no harm in today's juniors going through exactly the same experience. It's a discipline.

With all of this in mind, I am not saying that there aren't very competent PR people the world over across whom a company could share tasks (especially if its all part of the same organisation), but I am pretty sure that outsourcing what we consultants see as the "grunt work" is the tipping point on a downward spiral.

PR Week suggests that campaign analysis, media analysis, and media monitoring could all be done abroad. Why would a good agency do that when all of this is measurement of its hard work and proof of return on investment for a budget-scruitinising client? This is the fruits of our labour and yet the industry is advocating that we treat it as second best to the more interesting stuff. Surprisingly it also suggests that case studies, whitepapers and campaign reports be outsourced...oh yes, good idea - let's send everything that has to be produced in immaculate language and grammar (whether English, French, Arabic...) to another country, another culture and another language base. Why would the big boys bother to maintain an agency network that spans the globe with local offices in all major business centres, if it could all be done just as efficiently and effectively from a single outpost in Mumbai? Quite simply, it can't.

If you send a job elsewhere, you no longer retain a handle on its quality. Call me a control freak if you will - oh, you already did, ok - but I like to keep it in the family where people are responsible and accountable to the company, rather than shipping things to a third party.

The article's one saving grace is that it does not anywhere hint that pitching and distributing media announcements should be outsourced overseas. I think, after many a heated discussion with a company that wants me to outsource this oh-so-important part of our work (no names, but you know who you are Mr News Services Group Middle East!), I may have just exploded!

[Sound of soapbox being dismantled....]