If you asked me what’s broadly the best strategy for reducing outsourcing risks without overcomplicating operations with multiple vendors, I’d say go with a single vendor in multiple geographies.
In CX outsourcing, location is leverage.
Geographic diversification in BPO gives you:
✅ Redundancy across regions to mitigate outages, geopolitical instability, and natural disasters
✅ Access to follow-the-sun coverage with time-zone-aligned operations
✅ Local talent advantages (e.g., APAC / EMEA for multilingual support, nearshore for cultural alignment, etc.)
✅ Region-specific labor arbitrage and cost optimization
✅ Flexibility to test automation or self-service in one market before scaling
✅ Smoother seasonal ramping with staggered labor peaks
✅ Compliance buffers by offloading regulated work to specific geos
Of course, there are tradeoffs:
⚠️ Cross-site governance and standardization can be challenging … if you don’t set up the right contracts.
⚠️ Navigating regulatory environments across jurisdictions gets complex … if your vendor doesn’t know what they’re doing.
⚠️ You’ll need to plan carefully to align CX delivery with customer expectations … hopefully, this is a table stake for any BPO provider you partner with.
Still, if you’re trying to build resilience without adding multiple vendors, this is usually a good way to do it. You gain many of the risk reduction benefits of a diversified vendor strategy without multiplying your contract complexity.
No matter what I say here, or what any BPO broker or vendor tells you, the right outsourcing architecture always depends on your objectives, operating model, regulatory environment, and internal capacity for vendor management.