[dudul]

The big wave of outsourcing in 2000s was a disaster. This is not just about knowledge. It is also about cultural differences that are sometimes more limiting than not having face to face time. It is about timezone differences that make it hard to have calls or meetings.

[levosmetalo]

The reason cultural difference was an issue is one dominant culture enforced by presence culture. Without presence culture there would be no dominant company culture, it would be more distributed around the world. Also, timezones don't make it hard to have meetings, it's the same culture preventing it to happen. In my current company I sit in Europe, and it's easier for me to find a time slot for a meeting with my US and India-based colleagues than with people sitting in the same building with me.

[eudajmonia]

I am reminded of my experience working for a German medical equipment company. We have distributed shared service centres around the world. Policy, best-practices, etc are formulated in the head office. For some reason we have continual problems with colleagues from one South American region who never follow best-practices and cause a lot of additional work for other teams who have to clean-up after them. I believe this is exactly what we talk about when we discuss cultural issues. We also have problems with giving these colleagues additional training and mentorship because they prefer to start a lot later in the morning, so our working hour overlap is very minimal.