Project management offices fail to help most companies reduce IT cost or improve performance, according to new research from The Hackett Group Inc. In fact, companies with high utilization of PMOs see materially higher IT costs while also failing to deliver projects with higher ROI or better on-time and on-budget performance. The research also found that companies have significantly reduced their use of PMOs over the past three years, in part due to their inability to positively impact performance.

The tide has begun to turn on the flow of manufacturing jobs from the U.S. to China and other low-cost countries, according to a new study from The Hackett Group. Some companies are already reshoring a portion of their manufacturing capacity, and this trend is expected to reach a crucial tipping point over the next two to three years, as the total landed cost gap between the two nations continues to shrink, driven in part by rising wage inflation in China and continued productivity improvements in the U.S.

A newly-launched performance study from The Hackett Group Inc. is designed to help procurement organizations improve how they enable their companies' growth, in revenue and other areas. The open performance study should assist procurement leaders move beyond cost savings, and better understand the progress and strategies used in all facets of growth.

Corporations in the U.S. and Europe will move an additional 750,000 jobs in IT, finance and other business services to India and other low-cost geographies by 2016, according to new research from The Hackett Group. But levels of additional offshoring in these areas will begin to decline by 2014, and in the next 8 to 10 years the flow of jobs offshore is likely to cease, as companies simply run out of business services jobs suitable for moving to low-cost countries.