Case Summary
The American Outsourcing Case is a compilation of factual information for the purpose of provoking debates. The authors present both the pros and cons of outsourcing, and avoid inserting their personal bias. The case clearly defines outsourcing and then focuses on outlining its existence in China, Mexico, and India. The evolution and U.S. involvement in the Maquiladoras of Mexico is described first. The implementation of NAFTA and the creation of Maquiladoras were major catalysts in the growth of free trade between the U.S. and Mexico. China, in an attempt to attract foreign investors, created Special Economic Areas, which designated geographic zones that were enabled to operate under their own laws. With great tax benefits and low utility costs, outsourcing to the Special Economic Areas became very popular. Outsourcing of white collar jobs to India was also a great investment, with their inexpensive and technologically skilled laborers. General Electric Inc. is known as the largest market capitalization in the world. They have established themselves in more than 100 countries, three of those being China, Mexico, and India. The case closes with comparisons of the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing to the three countries, and leaves the reader with thought provoking questions about the future of outsourcing from the U.S.
Companies that Outsource
GE has outsourced to Mexico for the past 108 years, and has employed around 30,000 citizens. The majority of the thirty plants they operated in Mexico were maquiladoras. GE’s Mexican based operations are primarily targeted at the blue collar workers, with the production of anything from motors to lighting products. Mexico’s close proximity to the U.S. enables cheap shipping costs and short travel time. This is a distinct advantage when in comparison to outsourcing to China.
Even so, GE has invested around $1.5 billion in outsourcing to China, while providing around 12,000 jobs. China was even identified as GE’s major target for international growth in 2002. Outsourcing to China was and is slightly more sophisticated than that of Mexico. GE strategized to further develop distributional channels for selling purposes, build up product related services, and eventually start delegating financial services. They sell, purchase, and produce goods in China. GE has outsourced to China for electronics, telecommunications advancements, jet engine services, and even medical equipment.
GE found India to be useful in the area of human capital, where they employed more than 22,000. The came upon very intelligent, college-educated Indians willing to work for a small portion of what Americans would expect.
In the 1960’s American Companies started offshoring job positions to Asian countries, and Hispanic countries. American Companies started offshoring American Jobs because their business was more profitable in other countries, so in order for the companies to be closer to those countries American Companies started hiring employees in those countries. Furthermore, as American companies realized how much money they could save by offshoring jobs to other countries with low income they started offshoring more jobs with the purpose of saving money. As American companies offshored white and blue collar positions, their profit incremented and they were able to invest more money in their products. The objectives of this report are the following:
Becoming more global was also one of Immelt’s strategic focuses. To achieve that, GE gave priority to long-term investment that required new resources. Lastly, as GE wanted to become more socially and environmentally responsible, they needed more capital and resources. As GE could be...
Mankiw and Swagel (2006) argue outsourcing is not as large a phenomenon as the media describes. Their research indicates outsourcing accounts for very little of job loss in the United States, nor has it made a distinct contribution to the slow rebound of the labor market. They go on to propose that increased overseas employment has actually contributed to higher employment in parent United States companies. They reported that while 30,000 jobs were lost per month in 2004, two million job changes per month were happening as well. They reference the Bureau of Labor Statistics when they report that in 2015 there are expected to be 3.4 million jobs outsourced, but 160 million jobs gained here in the United States. They also claim that there is a rise in net US income by 12-14 cents per dollar of outso...
The outsourcing of former American jobs is due to the cheaper labor rates of these developing countries. As seen in the headlines of the previous Presidential Election, President Trump committed to saving hundreds of American jobs, as Carrier was looking to outsource to Mexico. Though Carrier decided to outsource to Monterrey, Mexico, known as one of the wealthiest cities in Mexico, many outsourced jobs are to third world countries where working conditions are very poor and the labor rate is pennies on the dollar.
“Present two arguments for and two arguments against a U.S. company offshoring the management of its customer relationships to technical and managerial personnel in a less-developed country.”
For advocates of global business, the hope is that outsourcing will help lift the United State’s economic growth and development by lowering the input cost of services (i.e. labor and materials) and by opening new markets abroad. Mainstream economists believe that outsourcing will have ...
In many cases outsourcing has proven to be beneficial for businesses. It can help a business’s management by allowing executives to focus on the core structure of the firm rather than every specific element. Production, manufacturing, or additional servic...
Outsourcing emerged on the financial arena during the 1980s and has since then been spreading. Outsourcing production was furthered with the process of globalization which provided a new component leading to the strengthening of resources, skill and labor specializations across the world. The process of outsourcing is using the skill and abilities of a third-party to accommodate society on the foundation of labor. As stated earlier, it was during the 1980s that the process kicked off mainly due to the efforts of corporations when they began to hire labor forces across the world. Even though outsourcing has come out from its developing stages, there are still following effects on the US economy.
As the problem of job outsourcing becomes more of an issue in politics, elected officials like the President and Congress will no longer be able to ignore the dilemma. The war in Iraq has been at the forefront of the presidential race but the importance of outsourcing American jobs seems to have been slightly overshadowed. If the issue of outsourcing is not watched carefully and a definitive plan hammered out, a trickling down of negative effects may occur within the U.S. economy. However, there is a polarized opinion on the effects of this “phenomenon”.
The U.S. industries have been outsourcing manufacturing for several decades now. U.S. companies thought they were reducing costs by outsourcing development, manufacturing, and process-engineering abilities. Consequently, U.S. corporations’ knowledge, skilled workers, and supply chain, which are the necessities to producing advanced products, have vanished. For example, almost all notebook computers, cell phones, and handheld devices, which were once created in the U.S., are now designed in Asia. When a major U.S. company outsource, it pressures their rivals to do the same thing. They also lose the expertise of process engineering, which would interact with manufacturing on a daily basis. Minor companies and skilled workers go to where the jobs and knowledge networks are no matter where they are geographically in the world. This decline of trade in the U.S. has caused a negative chain reaction to their suppliers of sophisticated materials, tools, production equipment, and components. U.S. industries do not have a way of coming up with new ideas for the next generation of high-tech products...
Outsourcing has been around for many years. In this paper I will discuss some of the history of outsourcing, the goods things about outsourcing, and the bad things about outsourcing.
China also provided a labor force that is able to tackle both white-collar and blue-collar job positions. This made foreign companies rush both monetary and technological resources into China to utilize the manufacturing and development power. Both Microsoft and Sun have created research and development centers to implement and design software applications in China. Domestic companies are not far behind either, for example, China's own Evermore Software is on the rise to challenge Microsoft's office suite with its own.4
Kelly, David. "In Through the Out Door: P&G Turns to IBM Outsourcing to Focus on Its Core Businesses." Accessed November 1, 2005. http://www.consumergoods.com/
The practice of outsourcing jobs is not a new concept. People have been outsourcing jobs for decades. Some people even offshore outsource jobs. There are many opinions to offshore outsourcing based on how it influences the economy. Some people are in favor of outsourcing jobs and some people are against outsourcing jobs. People need to get educated about the great impacts that offshore outsourcing does to an economy. The global economy has started to thrive and offshore outsourcing has profited the consumers as companies want to cut costs and competition, which is why I support offshore outsourcing jobs to foreign countries.
With the globalization of a product, a company might benefit in many ways. First, by sifting its production or services overseas, the company can reduce its overall production costs due to availability of low-cost labor. Second, working collectively with other companies overseas allows companies to access technical knowledge or resources that are either unavailable or are too expensive at home.