Beyond Offshore Outsourcing of Business Services (original) (raw)

Reconceptualizing the Firm in a World of Outsourcing and Offshoring: The Organizational and Geographical Relocation of High‐Value Company Functions

Journal of …, 2010

In the largest sense, global strategy amounts to (1) the optimal disaggregation or slicing of the firm's value chain into as many constituent pieces as organizationally and economically feasible, followed by (2) decisions as how each slice should be allocated geographically ('offshoring') and organizationally ('outsourcing'). Offshoring and outsourcing are treated as strategies that need to be simultaneously analysed, where just 'core' segments of the value chain are retained in-house, while others are optimally dispersed geographically, as well as dispersed over allies and contractors. This amounts to a reconsideration of the nature of the firm that captures the dynamic changes in global configuration and a reconsideration of what constitutes 'core' activities that need to be retained internally. The article proposes a new research agenda that searches for each firm's optimal degree of disaggregation and global dispersion given that further scattering of value chain activities entail benefits as well as increased complexity and costs.

Why domestic outsourcing is leading America's reemergence in global manufacturing

Business Horizons, 2014

With cost advantages from manufacturing in Asia and Mexico steadily deteriorating, U.S. firms are reassessing the option of domestic outsourcing to remain globally competitive. Domestic outsourcing is a fast-emerging strategy among U.S. firms. It involves a company relocating primary and support activities to America that were previously performed outside the country in pursuit of competitive advantage. Alternatively called 'insourcing' or 'reshoring,' domestic outsourcing occurs when an activity is returned to the United States and is performed by the company internally, when it is shifted to a domestic partner through a strategic alliance, or when it is contracted out to a domestic supplier. However, the firm's intention is always the same: to establish a long-term basis for improving company operation by performing a key business activity in the U.S. Outsourcing manufacturing activities gained popularity among American firms 4 decades ago as they expanded the search for a labor cost advantage. Currently, outsourcing retains the core objective of increasing a firm's competitiveness but has become global in scope, encompasses virtually all business activities, and is undertaken for a package of justifications-with labor savings representing the

The impact of outsourcing on the transaction costs and boundaries of manufacturing

This paper discusses the concept of outsourcing, along with an account of the economic benefits that are achieved by reconfiguring the organization and reducing the transaction costs of providing products and services. With the practice of outsourcing experiencing exceptional growth, this paper examines the corresponding change (decline) in UK manufacturing as an economic activity, and considers how the economic benefits of outsourcing alter the contribution that an organization makes to a sector’s gross domestic product. To assess this issue, an input–output methodology for measuring economic restructuring in UK manufacturing is presented.

THE MYTH AND THE REALITY OF OUTSOURCING AND OFFSHORING

2020

Outsourcing and offshoring processes have existed for a long time and have always been closely related to international business. The advent of modern means of telecommunications and transportation, among other vital factors, has enabled the companies to reach levels of outsourcing and offshoring, which we have never witnessed before. On the other hand, this massive offshoring caused a phenomenon called de-industrialisation in the once heavily industrialised countries such as the USA, Australia, UK, Canada, and subsequently to some of the EU countries and Japan. Can the USA and these others, once amongst the most industrialised countries in the world, return the decades-old trend of offshoring misfortune in their interest so that they may experience a "Manufacturing Renaissance" is the primary notion behind this publication.

Outsourcing and offshoring

2004

The recent overseas outsourcing of a number of business services, such as call centres and accounts processing, has raised concerns about the future of an area of business activity in which the UK has been deemed to hold a competitive advantage. While the future direction of UK manufacturing may have been questionable, the abundance of skilled service workers has long been thought to provide the basis for a strong alternative range of businesses. But ICT developments have reduced the dependence of many tasks from any particular location and made possible the relocation of many service jobs from industrialized to developing countries that provide a suitable infrastructure, high skills labour market and labour cost benefits. The great majority of work which is being offshored is in information technology (IT) and business process or call centre work (BPO). The providers of IT/BPO services include UK specialists, multinationals, and an emerging group of Indian companies. Interestingly,...

The Importance of Outsourcing in the Production Process in the Globalizing World

İmgelem

In the globalizing world market, there are conditions of global cooperation and integration where competition and transformation are more demanding than ever before. In this respect, the fate of companies is determined by their ability to act and adapt. In this respect, it is necessary to act quickly, think creatively and adapt to changing conditions in a timely manner in order to survive in the conditions of high competition. For this reason, more and more companies in the public and private sectors are choosing to outsource their non-core business. Due to this basic fact, especially multinational companies are increasingly turning to outsourcing. The main reason why this strategy dominates, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, is that companies and governments sometimes have to cooperate to protect human health. Cooperation in the field of expertise and know-how in this sector and mutual exchange of knowledge and experience are of great importance. Outsourcing in the fields ...