Exploring the Benefits of Outsourcing

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Recommended: Advantages and disadvantages of global outsourcing

The purview of this paper is designed to encompass the outsourcing of jobs in the manufacturing sector of the United States' economy. Beneficial and disadvantageous elements of globalization will be exposed within the respective boundaries inclusive to the outsourcing of U.S. industry jobs.

Corporations in the United States should continue to pursue global trade through the outsourcing of in-house manufacturing. In-house manufacturing refers to production managed and orchestrated by an organization's own employees, often using internal staff and resources. An alternative to this is the concept of outsourcing, defined as the process through which companies contract internal functions, such as the manufacturing of products, to external providers (Parry). Offshoring is a term specifically used to describe the practice of relocating internal functions to foreign countries in an effort to reduce labor or production costs.

Businesses benefit from the cost advantage of outsourcing non-core jobs such as manufacturing. The ability to relocate capital, technology, and resources across almost the entirety of the globe poses a considerable advantage for corporations aiming to lower the cost of production (Dorgan). It also transfers the risk of production and shifts the cumbrance of maintaining infrastructure to the external provider (Koulopoulos). An external provider denotes a company that functions to supply goods or services for another company. For the purposes of this paper, the terms “supplier” and “external provider” are regarded as synonymous.

Kate Vitasek et al. state in Vested Outsourcing: “Usually, if a process is not core to the organization, it is a candidate for outsourcing” (4). Thomas Koulopoulos, an expert on i...

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...how-outsourcing-affects-the-us-economy/>.

Tiunov, Sergei. “Business Processes for Outsourcing: Core vs. Non-Core.” The Moscow Times. 15 Feb. 2011. 2 Nov. 2011 Web. .

Vitasek, Kate, Mika Ledyard, and Karl Manrodt. Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.

United States Department of Labor. “Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers.” 1 Nov. 2011 Web. .

“Fuel Subsidies: Crude Measures.” The Economist. 29 May 2008. 1 Nov. 2011 Web. .

“United States Unemployment Rate.” Trading Economics. 7 Oct. 2011. 1 Nov. 2011 Web. .

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