Free Essays on Outsourcing

Outsourcing Business Processes Summary This paper captures the most prominent services and issues associated with today's outsourcing environment. Outsourcing is the modern business term for having other companies accomplish basic business processes rather than doing them inhouse. While outsourcing has always been an important business option, modern technical capabilities are fast making outsourcing a critical requirement in competitive, cost conscious industries. However, our recent experience with terrorist challenges indicates that a second look is needed to ensure that outsourcing risks are still acceptable. This paper (1) benchmarks classical (but modern) outsourcing methods to provide a starting point, (2) notes what information system services are being outsourced, (3) provides examples of how those services were being promoted and leveraged, with some comments on terrorist related risks, and (4) indicates how the experts suggest that outsourcing, if it is reliable and secure, should be addressed in contracts (incentives). An awareness of these basic aspects of outsourcing is important to the business analyst or consultant. Benchmarking Modern Outsourcing Charles L. Gay and James Essinger (2000) provide not only a generic (non-high-tech) framework within which to view modern, high-tech outsourcing, they also provide this framework from the British perspective, often using United States companies as examples. They list numerous benefits and hazards of outsourcing, only indirectly considering terrorist acts, and they explore the different business relationships that apply in the world of outsourcing. Based on their perspectives, we can conclude that outsourcing is a well developed but also complex topic, one that is often over simplified and, thus, is often improperly implemented. Nevertheless, with the British framework in mind, one should view the numerous and quickly evolving high-tech extrapolations of outsourcing ... Free Essays on Outsourcing Free Essays on Outsourcing Summary: According to the election-year bluster of politicians and pundits, the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries has become a problem of epic proportion. Fortunately, this alarmism is misguided. Outsourcing actually brings far more benefits than costs, both now and in the long run. If its critics succeed in provoking a new wave of American protectionism, the consequences will be disastrous for the U.S. economy and for the American workers they claim to defend. Daniel W. Drezner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of "The Sanctions Paradox." He keeps a weblog at www.danieldrezner.com/blog; full references and data sources for this article can be found here. THE TRUTH IS OFFSHORE When a presidential election year coincides with an uncertain economy, campaigning politicians invariably invoke an international economic issue as a dire threat to the well-being of Americans. Speechwriters denounce the chosen scapegoat, the media provides blanket coverage of the alleged threat, and legislators scurry to introduce supposed remedies. The cause of this year's commotion is offshore outsourcing the alleged migration of American jobs overseas. The depth of alarm was strikingly illustrated by the firestorm of reaction to recent testimony by N. Gregory Mankiw, the head of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. No economist really disputed Mankiw's observation that "outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," which makes it "a good thing." But in the political arena, Mankiw's comments sparked a furor on both sides of the aisle. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused the Bush administration of wanting "to export more of our jobs overseas," and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle quipped, "If this is the administration's position, I think they owe an apology to every worker in America." Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, meanwh... Free Essays on Outsourcing Outsourcing Business Processes Summary This paper captures the most prominent services and issues associated with today's outsourcing environment. Outsourcing is the modern business term for having other companies accomplish basic business processes rather than doing them inhouse. While outsourcing has always been an important business option, modern technical capabilities are fast making outsourcing a critical requirement in competitive, cost conscious industries. However, our recent experience with terrorist challenges indicates that a second look is needed to ensure that outsourcing risks are still acceptable. This paper (1) benchmarks classical (but modern) outsourcing methods to provide a starting point, (2) notes what information system services are being outsourced, (3) provides examples of how those services were being promoted and leveraged, with some comments on terrorist related risks, and (4) indicates how the experts suggest that outsourcing, if it is reliable and secure, should be addressed in contracts (incentives). An awareness of these basic aspects of outsourcing is important to the business analyst or consultant. Benchmarking Modern Outsourcing Charles L. Gay and James Essinger (2000) provide not only a generic (non-high-tech) framework within which to view modern, high-tech outsourcing, they also provide this framework from the British perspective, often using United States companies as examples. They list numerous benefits and hazards of outsourcing, only indirectly considering terrorist acts, and they explore the different business relationships that apply in the world of outsourcing. Based on their perspectives, we can conclude that outsourcing is a well developed but also complex topic, one that is often over simplified and, thus, is often improperly implemented. Nevertheless, with the British framework in mind, one should view the numerous and quickly evolving high-tech extrapolations of outsourcing ...