I do not have any personal experience working with a company where the study itself was outsourced but I do have experience seeing a vital part of the company being outsourced. At my first job the Help desk was outsourced to India to save money. I can speak to that experience. Outsourcing the Helpdesk to India did hurt the company. Our clients were not happy with the service or the quality anymore, it was harder to manage a team working so far away and in a different time zone. There was always a delay in communication and hence decision making. From that experience, I would say outsourcing the study would not be the best choice for the company. As many of my peers have stated, lack of communicated would be a huge pitfall in my opinion. Another pitfall to look out for is the compromise of the data and results of the study.