Most location decisions are made in the wrong sequence.

Organizations select geography first, then scramble to make talent, governance, and operating models fit the choice they have already made. When the model underperforms, they blame the location. The Philippines was too far. The time zone created friction. The talent pool was shallower than promised.

The location was rarely the problem. The design was.

Having closed more than 100 transformation projects over 13 years, including building DHL’s Americas shared services operation from 4 employees to more than 1,300 across four countries, I have watched this pattern repeat across industries and functions. Finance, HR, customer operations, IT support. The specific work changes; the failure mode does not. Organizations optimize for cost before clarifying strategy. They select vendors before defining governance. They invest in technology before stabilizing the processes technology is meant to enable.

The result: Deloitte’s 2024 Global Outsourcing Survey found that only 34% of organizations now cite cost as their primary outsourcing driver, down from 70% in 2020. The shift reflects hard-won lessons. Cost models built without considering talent sustainability, governance design, and customer impact tend to deliver savings on paper that evaporate in operation.

Operating models designed five to ten years ago are now misaligned with current realities. Labor markets have shifted. Customer expectations have accelerated. AI is reshaping what work humans should do at all, and organizations that delay strategic clarity will find their competitors have already captured the advantage. The question is no longer whether to optimize your delivery model. The question is whether you are starting with strategy or starting with geography.

The Definition of Bestshoring

This definition matters because the market has conflated bestshoring with location selection. Nearshore, offshore, onshore. These are outcomes of a bestshoring decision, not the decision itself.

Bestshoring answers three strategic questions:

The organizations that succeed treat these questions as interdependent. Location decisions flow from strategic clarity, not the reverse. Workforce choices align to operating model requirements. Governance design accounts for the realities of the talent model it must oversee.

Bestshoring is strategic design, not geographic arbitrage.

Bestshoring vs. Offshoring, Nearshoring, and Outsourcing

The market defaults to simpler framings because they are easier to sell and easier to measure. Offshoring promises labor arbitrage. Nearshoring promises time zone alignment. Outsourcing promises variable cost structures. Each framing captures a piece of the picture while missing the whole.

The cost of conflation is measurable. When organizations skip the strategic framework and default to geographic shortcuts, predictable failure patterns emerge. The attrition cycle: cost models that ignore talent sustainability create turnover that consumes the savings they projected. Governance gridlock: structures designed by people who will not live with them create bottlenecks that slow decision-making to a crawl. Technology misfires: automation investments built on processes that are not stable enough to sustain them. According to Gallup, replacing a single employee costs 50% to 200% of their annual salary. In high-attrition delivery models, that cost compounds invisibly until the margin captured on paper has already been consumed by turnover.

These are not bad decisions made by incapable leaders. They are design flaws embedded in frameworks that start with answers instead of questions. Many leaders inherit models they did not design, built on assumptions they did not make. The question is not who made the original decision. The question is whether the current model still serves the business.

Location Options Within Bestshoring

Bestshoring encompasses multiple location strategies, selected based on what is optimal, not what is cheapest.

The right answer depends on the strategic questions, not the other way around.

Technology and AI: Enablers, Not Location Options

Automation and artificial intelligence answer a different question than location. Where, who, and how address how human work should be organized. Technology addresses what work humans should do at all.

This distinction is critical. Technology changes the scope of work requiring location decisions. It does not replace the location decision itself.

When organizations automate successfully, they often discover that technology creates as much work as it eliminates. Exception handling queues grow because automated systems surface edge cases that manual processes quietly buried. Data quality requirements intensify because AI models demand cleaner inputs than human judgment required. Governance complexity expands because automated decisions must be auditable, explainable, and defensible. In my experience across more than 100 transformation projects, organizations implementing automation at scale routinely see a significant portion of projected savings consumed by integration complexity, data remediation, and exception management.

The organizations that position technology as a shortcut to location strategy tend to invest in tools their processes are not stable enough to leverage. The organizations that position technology as an enabler within a bestshoring framework tend to clarify what humans should do first, then amplify that human work with technology.

Technology enables bestshoring. It is not a substitute for it.

Assessing Bestshoring Readiness

The Six Dimensions of Bestshoring Readiness™ (SDBR™) framework provides a diagnostic lens for organizations evaluating their delivery models. Purpose-built from decades of transformation work across operations, finance, HR, IT, and customer functions, the framework identifies six interconnected dimensions that determine whether a delivery model will scale or stall.

Explore the framework: Hover to see connections between dimensions. Click any dimension for the full article.

Weakness in one dimension cascades to others. An organization with strong cost modeling but weak talent sustainability will watch savings evaporate into attrition. An operation with solid governance but unclear strategic direction will efficiently manage a model that no longer serves the business.

The framework suggests a sequence: WHY before WHO, WHO before WHERE, WHERE before HOW. Strategic clarity must precede workforce decisions. Workforce design must inform location selection. Location determines the operating model requirements that governance must address. Some organizations may need to start with a different dimension based on their specific situation: a pending lease expiration forces a location decision, or a talent crisis demands immediate workforce attention. The sequence remains the ideal. The framework accommodates the real.

Before your next location decision, ask: Is this starting with strategy or starting with geography?

For Leaders

If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this:

Bestshoring is not a location. It is a strategic approach to determining where work should live, who should do it, and how it should be organized.

Location follows strategy. Organizations that select geography before clarifying strategic intent tend to spend years retrofitting models that were misaligned from the start. The cost is not just financial. It is the opportunity cost of leaders who spend their time fixing preventable problems instead of building competitive advantage.

The framework matters more than the answer. The right location for your organization depends on your strategic priorities, talent requirements, and operating model design. You already know this. The challenge is finding time to think strategically when operational demands consume every available hour. The Six Dimensions framework is designed to accelerate that clarity, not add another project to your list.

Next Steps

See where you stand. The Bestshoring Readiness Health Check™ provides a rapid diagnostic across all six dimensions. Twenty questions. Five minutes. Clarity on which dimensions need attention first.

Download the Health Check: thejrmooregroup.com/publications/#bestshoring

Get the full diagnostic lens. The Six Dimensions of Bestshoring Readiness framework article explains the complete system: how dimensions interconnect, where organizations typically get stuck, and what sequence of action moves the needle.

Read the framework: thejrmooregroup.com/2026/01/13/six-dimensions-bestshoring-readiness-framework/

Get a decision memo. A 45-minute strategy session with The JR Moore Group™ identifies your specific gaps and produces a one-page decision memo on what to do next. No cost. No obligation.

Book a strategy session: thejrmooregroup.com/connect/#consult

About The JR Moore Group

The JR Moore Group provides bestshoring strategy, operational design, and transformation advisory for organizations building or optimizing shared services and BPO operations. The firm’s methodology draws from 35 years in supply chain and logistics, including 28 years at DHL where Johnnie Moore built and scaled global shared services operations across four countries. The transformation programs he designed continued to succeed long after his departure, earning a CEO Award for sustained impact.

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