The outsourcing debate has been stood on its head in recent weeks. For years, the cry has been that to outsource is good. Outsource or die. Now we see reports from consultants Compass and Boston contradicting this.

To buy services as cheaply as possible from a business-hungry, educated, work-ethic-led country like India has been the norm. And duly we’ve all been busy looking for ways to do just that.

Those truths still hold true – cutting costs is good. As long as we don’t cut anything more important to our business in the process. But in the rush to take advantage of this benefit, we may have been guilty of ignoring the nagging concerns about outsourcing.

These concerns are easy to identify. Take the example of call centres – there are parallels in any kind of IT service you may have considered outsourcing.

We are all used to talking to call centres whose staff are able to blur the line between ownership of your problem and their own distance from a solution with dazzling expertise, leaving you after 40 minutes on the phone no closer to a resolution and wondering what it is they actually do.

Ken Young of IT Week argued that Geoffrey Moore’s “Tornado Effect” explains the loss of after-sales support at Amazon. The firm fears that spending too much on support for existing customers would mean loosing its number one spot. Moore’s premise is quite complex, being affected by the position of products in the adoption cycle, and analysis of the nature of the relationship the user wants with those products.

Problems of outsourcing can stem from a failure to adequately understand this complexity. If you see every transaction as something to be done at minimum cost and as a standalone process, instead of as part of a continuum, then you risk loosing your customers.

Frankly, if you are buying a Ryanair flight and are looking for the cheapest trip possible, even if it’s impossible to talk to a human to book your flight, if the seats are too close together and don’t recline, then you’ll put up with it and you’ll be back because next time the flights will still be cheap. Which is what you really want.

Conversely, if you are buying a product or service where a long-term relationship with your supplier is paramount then you want someone who knows you and your thoughts and can second-guess these in their dealings with you. Banks being a good example.

Developing and keeping data about customers, their habits and information needs is what can be lost through outsourcing. It’s no coincidence that banks have been scalded so badly in their call-centre outsourcing and are now returning to internal named contacts for customers ringing in.

This truth is now emerging as we become more sophisticated. It doesn’t mean outsourcing is no longer a good idea. Just that it’s the right option for the right organisation with the right customer base and the right product.

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