There is much economic debate about the corporations in the United States outsourcing and there are a lot of dirty words being hurled at companies and corporate executives. But in the end if Union Employees are upset with outsourcing then they can buy some stock in the company, whose profits will now be higher due to the outsourcing due to economies of scale and efficiency models of costs. Now upsetting US based labor unions is only part of the problem you see there are also a few problems in outsourcing and those have to do with international patent laws, as often if you outsource to another nation lets say someone will steal your designs and start making the product and sell those products to the world, cutting you out of the pattern and hurting your market share. But in the case of a Boeing or HP, these companies are only making components and the component alone is only one piece of the puzzle you see? For instance if General Motors out sources door handles, the company making them in China can compete with GM for door handles but not for the whole car. Here are some global research papers on outsourcing worthy of mention; http://www.outsourcingresearch.co.uk Recently I talked with a research student at Brunel University Business School who is currently doing his final year project. His areas of interest is organisational change as a result of outsourcing (impact of externalising business processes on strategic an tactical alignment). In US English that means outsourcing and he is studying all the aspects and believe me it is not just about lowering labor costs or putting Americans out of work to save money. It is literally about efficiency and survival and it is not a bad thing. I hope you will consider all this in 2006. |
