A recent Forrester Research blog got me thinking... I think that in-sourcing and outsourcing are undeniable trends. In fact, among some young research people I'd say both are "mainstream."
Interesting to me is that people living in the United States and proponents of *not outsourcing* outside of the US often do not have US citizenship. Weird, huh? It's almost like these foreigners are more likely to say they are gung how Americano. I find this somewhat unbelievable.
Also, people that are only friendly to USA resources are missing billions of friends and allies in research. Most civilized foreign counties do more surveys and polls than we do per capita.
I do not see these insourcing, outsourcing and electronic research methods as mutually exclusive. I do not think that full service firms will go away completely. Where we are in Oregon, with 11% unemployment, I believe we may go out "in the field" again and it will be "the field." The US Government is "in the field" with the 2010 Census, for example.
I'm seeing some clients who are afraid of missing *cell phone only* households and people who have lost their homes and been forced to be mobile in this economy. Babyboomers still have $ and watch TV more than surf the internet. You've got to know your segments and I'm convinced after two decades as a researcher that most dramatic research errors happen in defining the sample frame and choosing the correct method.
A researcher friend of mine said you could spot some of these people prone to making research errors by how they talk. They choose a *methodology* instead of a *method* (my research colleagues point was that you really choose a *method* because a *methodology* is really the methods or organizing principles underlying a particular art, science, or other area of study).