Seeking Opaque Indifference in Offshore BPO

Abstract

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the delegation of one or more business processes to an external service provider (an offshore captive centre or a third party). The focus of most BPO research has been the cost reductions delivered by third party providers of BPO services in offshore locations in India, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. There has been little research on captive centres or the satisfaction of the end customer. This paper introduces the concept of “opaque indifference” which is OBPO delivered in a manner where the end customer is either unaware of or indifferent to the location of the service. It is important to the end customer in the OBPO environment and has a significant relationship with trust in the provider and the technology infrastructure. The overall research goal is to investigate the factors that support opaque indifference in OBPO.