93 percent of Scottish executives would personally recommend Scotland to others as an offshoring alternative
As credit crunch forces businesses to re-evaluate their outsourcing needs, 83% say their company doesn’t realise the benefits Scotland offers
Edinburgh, 6th of April, 2009 – A survey of senior Scottish executives released today by Morse, the business and IT consultancy, has found that almost all (93%) believe that moving back office operations to Scotland would make an excellent alternative to offshore outsourcing and would personally recommend this to other businesses in the UK.
While this is good news, the respondents also said that only 32% of the companies they worked for shared this view. The majority (68%) of businesses had not looked at Scotland as an alternative to outsourcing operations to traditional markets such as Eastern Europe, India or the Far East.
When questioned further, 83% of senior executives said that they thought the reason why so few companies shared their positive view of Scotland as a competitive offshoring alternative was that businesses without a base in Scotland don’t realise the significant benefits that basing operations there can bring.
“In today’s tough economic climate, organisations are more likely to look towards outsourcing as a way to reduce costs. While senior executives in Scotland have had overwhelmingly positive first-hand experiences, it is disappointing to see that this important feedback isn’t filtering up to the key decision makers at the companies they work for. As a result, there is a clear disconnect between the perception and the reality of doing business in Scotland that desperately needs to be fixed,” said Grant Niven, director of Scotland, Morse. “With the regulatory problems facing several large outsourcers abroad, now is the time that businesses should be looking to take advantage of the benefits of basing their operations in Scotland.”
67% of those surveyed blamed the Scottish government, saying that they felt the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise and other associated bodies had not done enough to promote the benefits of Scottish relocation to organisations across the UK. This is despite initiatives such as the development of Glasgow’s International Financial Services District (IFSD) which is a £1billion joint public/private sector project aimed at creating a pre-equipped business area for financial services firms seeking a new UK location. Companies moving to the IFSD can benefit from relocation advice, practical assistance, skills initiatives and recruitment support, as well as Scottish Development International’s business grants and other financial incentive schemes.
Yet the senior executives questioned said they thought that there were actually many benefits to using Scotland as an offshoring alternative. The most popular benefit stated was convenience (70%); such as location, having infrastructure already in place, no language barrier and no time difference, followed by access to a highly skilled local workforce (47%). Other benefits for doing business in Scotland were lower costs (35%), government grants and other financial incentives (30%) and quality of life for employees (27%).
“Clearly, the benefits of locating elements of business operations in Scotland are not being communicated to organisations throughout the UK as effectively as they should be. There has obviously been a lot of work done by both public and private organisations to create incentives and benefits to encourage businesses to relocate. However, the work is of little use if the message isn’t getting through to the people that count,” said Niven. “While the fact that Scotland was recently named European Region of the Future 2008 by the Financial Times fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) magazine for the second time in four years is a sign that Scotland’s business potential is starting to be recognised, evidently it still has a way to go.”
The survey of 100 senior Scottish executives was commissioned by Morse and conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne. Further details of the survey are available from Spark Communications on 020 7436 0420.