Outsourcing a Division
Regardless of the type of business or product line, international corporations have realized that change is inevitable in order to maintain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. Organizational change can lead to a revision in the overall operational strategy or the need for an organization to expand its business practices globally. Some organizations expand distribution of its products to users in other countries, while other organizations may opt to outsource its services. Outsourcing has become a means of obtaining a competitive advantage, now and into the future (Broedner et al. 2009, Kroes and Ghosh 2010, Wee et al. 2010, as cited by Yang, Wacker, & Sheu, 2012). Whether making the decision to expand its products or services, organizations often review its operational methodology when operating outside of its home country. This paper presents information that pertains to the critical thinking process and decision-making skills that may assist managers when tasked outsource services or to conduct operations in another country.
TLS, Incorporated is an international corporation that manufactures work boots/shoes, gloves, and hats. The company has only been in business for 5 years; however, due to the heavy demand of its services, the company has determined that outsourcing one of its divisions may expedite the manufacturing process and enhance organizational profits. In today’s marketplace, companies have to consider the entire supply chain, from manufacturing cost-reduction to shorter lead times (Dekker, 2000). With the expansive growth in such a short amount of time, the company knew it had to constantly review its operational strategy and adjust business practices as necessary. In a diverse,...
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...or business practices for various reasons; the primary referred to motive is costs benefit (Isaksson & Lantz, 2015). Prior to making a decision to outsource, TLS management reviewed the pros and cons of outsourcing and determined that the benefits outweighed the risks. An effective approach for managers to assess potential outcome of outsourcing is by using a decision-making model. Whether managers prefer prescriptive or descriptive decision-making, during the decision-making process organizations sometime assess the situation to determine if outsourcing will satisfy its expanded or newly implemented operational strategy. TLS Incorporated - a manufacturing company - opted to outsource a division abroad; the TLS manager anticipates that based on decision-making skills and critical thinking processes, the decision to outsource will benefit to organization as a whole.
But First, Training Foreign Replacements” reveal the importance of the article to an international marketer. Outsourcing and offshoring prove to be the few topics one can learn in this article. An international marketer gains a better understanding of outsourcing and offshoring by recognizing the effects on the company, business, and economy. An important aspect of an international marketer’s career is to assess the market from a global perspective. An international marketer needs to know whether a company is outsourcing it’s employees incase they do not and need to market and appeal to potential employees for the company. An international marketer needs to understand the effects and how the topics outsourcing and offshoring work to gain a better grasp the company or business as a
Outsourcing simply means acquiring services from an external organization instead of using internal resources (Butler, 2000). By using outsourced resources, organizations can gain a competitive advantage by utilizing contingent staff to accomplish strategic goals without incurring the fixed overhead. By focusing on the leading edge and highly specialized skill sets, outsourcing providers can often offer higher quality services, or at a lower price than the client organization. Typical reasons for outsourcing go beyond simple contingent staffing. Outsourcing providers are able to maintain economies of scale with regard to specialization (...
Recently outsourcing has been in the news, especially during political election years. It seems to be a phenomenon that is causing much concern among the population. But exactly how is outsourcing effecting both workers and businesses? And is it as big of a problem as politicians describe?
Jim is a upstanding, hard working, American computer programmer who recently lost his job to a man who doesn’t provide the correct code or patches for the computer programs he builds. This man is living in a far off country providing money that doesn’t benefit Jim or America, now Jim has a nice spot in the unemployment line. This is not how any good employee should be treated, but now many companies are dropping their good employees for cheaper foreign employees. Recent outsourcing is factor in the recent downturn in the U.S. economy.
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 has been viewed as a strategic decision rather than as an ethical dilemma. Robertson, Lamin & Livanis state that there are ethical considerations that are largely overlooked in evaluations of outsourcing decisions (2010, pg. 185). When reviewing an ethical dilemma, there must be a framework for which a decision can be made. “Utilitarianism
In the 1960s through the 1970s, companies realized strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were strong market strategy keys to create and capture customer loyalty. As the demand for new products rose in the 1980s, these market requirements were to increase their flexibility and responsiveness to adapt existing products and processes or to develop new ones in order to meet customer needs. As manufacturing improved in the 1990s, managers began noticing material and service inputs involving suppliers and their major impact on an organization’s ability to meet customer needs. As a result of these changes, organizations now find that it difficult to manage their own organizations. First, they must be involved in the management of their network of all upstream firms that provide directly or indirectly, as well as the network of downstream firms, which are responsible for delivery and market service of the product to the end customer. In order to succeed, managers have to realize that they cannot do it alone and they must work together on a daily basis with the whole organizations in their supply chains. Because supply chain management involves all functions within an organization, managers need to know what a supply chain is, why it is important, and the impact of supply chain management on the success and profitability of their organization. Today, Wal-Mart topped the list of the America’s biggest companies on the Fortune 500 list, “with sales of almost $345 billion — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars” (Forbs). Wal-Mart’s supply chain management is becoming recognized as a core competitive strategy.
Outsourcing has been around for many years. In this paper, I will discuss some of the history of outsourcing, the good things about outsourcing, and the bad things about outsourcing. Outsourcing is important because many companies rely on it in order to get many different products and services to their facility on time and in good shape. Outsourcing is a huge part of the business industry today. Any business can be affected by outsourcing.
The organization has had to ensure that it has retail stores in many countries globally and website options in more than 100 countries. The company further enhances access of online stores in more than 37 countries which is accessible all the time and people are able to access the services regardless of their location. Globalization further affects the organization in the sense of international market management which requires it to engage in strictly global decision making. The organization’s production networks have been geared to enhancing global competition (Lüsted, 2012) .The Company is further good when it comes to seizing the opportunities available in global market. For the organization to find efficient as well as cheap means of production, it has to bargain hard so as to allow its contractors to have low profits. This mostly is consequential to the suppliers cutting corners with the use of cheap
Rao, K., and Young, R. R. (1994) Global supply chains: Factors influencing outsourcing of logistics functions. International journal of physical distribution and logistics management. Vol. 24. No. 6.
It is suggested for any organization to review, reassess any existing supply chain management or any delivery techniques, before developing a new supply chain method so that any exposure to high risk of failure is reduced. Somerset as a company taken advantage of outsourcing and transferred it product manufacturing to China leveraging low cost labor and raw material. The labor cost and other cheap material reduce Somerset overhead cost, but there is always the risk of not delivering product on time due to the foreign country political climate, change in tax and tariff and local
Outsourcing is a technique for companies to reassign specific responsibilities to external entities. There are several motivations for outsourcing including organizational, improvement, cost, and revenue advantages (Ghodeswar & Vaidyanathan, 2008).
Outsourcing labor and materials in a global market can significantly stretch the supply chain structure. This can have both positive and negative effects. Looking to different countries provides the opportunity to access different markets and find the lowest possible manufacturing costs. Many companies also embraced the Toyota Motor Corp. model of just-in-time inventory and other lean manufacturing techniques that emphasized speed and cost reduction (Bosman, 2006...
A disciplined approach to management eying leading employees, improving the management team and building the business strategy. Instead of treating each problem as a one off. They design systems and structures that make it easier to handle in the future. (Techrepublic, 2015) 2.2. Risk of exposing confidential data: When an organization outsources HR, Payroll and Recruitment services, it involves a risk if exposing confidential company information to a third-party Synchronizing the deliverables: Some of the common problem areas include stretched delivery time frames, sub-standard quality output and inappropriate categorization of responsibilities. At times it is easier to regulate these factors inside an organization rather than with an outsourced partner Hidden costs: Although outsourcing most of the times is cost-effective at times the hidden costs involved in signing a contract while signing a contract across international boundaries may pose a serious threat Lack of customer focus: An outsourced vendor may be catering to the expertise-needs of multiple company at a time. In such situations vendors may lack complete focus on your organization 's tasks. 2.3. 1.Know the
Outsourcing is the final option for logistics management. When this happens, transportation firms concentrate on logistics, and the company can concentrate on it’s production. There are many cost savings using this type of program, however that lack of control can negatively effect many companies.