The 24-hour Knowledge Factory Paradigm: the Evolving Model for Offshoring Based on Strategic, Economic, Legal, Health, Technical, and Other Considerations

Working Paper Series Acknowledgements The research described in this paper has involved large number of persons spread over half a dozen organizations. The author is indebted to these fellow researchers, former students, and current students for their interest and enthusiasm on the topic of 24-Hour Knowledge Factory. The author wants to highlight that his students at the University of Arizona and MIT have played the pivotal role in analyzing several of the issues summarized in this paper. Abstract The 24-Hour Knowledge Factory paradigm involves 3 (or more) collaborating centers, each located in a different continent. Individuals at each center work from 9 am to 5 pm in that country, and then pass the work-in-progress to the next collaborating center to enable round-the-clock performance in a manner somewhat akin to the deployment of three shifts in the manufacturing sector. The gradual adoption of this paradigm is motivated by several considerations. In late 2007, the World Health Organization concluded that working at night is a probable cause of breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Attempts by US state governments and even the federal government to discourage outsourcing are unlikely to succeed for multiple reasons, and the notion of " hybrid outsourcing " will gain momentum over time. Plus there are the advantages of developing products and services in shorter timeframe; further these products and services can command broader appeal in the global marketplace. A detailed study was conducted at IBM to compare the performance of a co-located team and a distributed team, and the performance of the latter team exceeded initial expectations. The 24-Hour Knowledge Factory is relevant for structured and semi-structured applications in many knowledge-based industries including accounting, legal, design, and development. There is a growing array of examples from healthcare and other domains where off-site professionals have been able to provide better results than on-site professionals, thereby validating that many tasks can be more effectively performed using the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory approach.