Shocker: Outsourcing Often Not So Good For Companies
from the yeah,-like-we-couldn't-see-that-coming dept
We've been accused a few times of being supporters of outsourcing (offshore or not), which isn't particularly accurate. From the very beginning of the hype surrounding outsourcing, we've said repeatedly that outsourcing is very often a bad decision for a few reasons. First, it's often not about fixing problems, but about moving problems somewhere else -- which often makes them worse, because you have less control over them. Second, moving core services outside of your control can give the company less flexibility down the road. Also, we'd been hearing all sorts of reports (especially with offshoring) about how it paralyzed decision making. With the time difference you had a "one decision per day" system, since each move would have to bounce around the globe. It appears that new studies are supporting this, pointing out that many companies that go with outsourced solutions regret it. They don't save any money, the quality goes down and there are various other problems created by outsourcing. Of course, that said, there's still no reason to put protectionist measures in place. If companies want to make bad decisions -- that's for their management to decide to do. There certainly are some situations where outsourcing and offshoring do make sense, but the mass hysteria on both the pro and con side over the past couple of years has clearly been overblown.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Outsourced Employees vs Outsourced Call Centers
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Offshoring
The Phillipinos compete by renting individuals also, but not in the high-tech area.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Outsourcing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]