Introduction.
Outsourcing is a $6 trillion global industry. It is one of the most widespread topics in the field of business. Workplaces throughout this country and abroad are discussing this great phenomenon. From a global perspective, outsourcing allows companies to create a more flexible and adaptable organizational structure. Let's take a look at what it is, the pros, the cons, and what it means to the average worker.
So what is it exactly? This great innovation has revolutionized the workplace. Outsourcing simply put is hiring outside groups to do the work that either an organization cannot do or chooses not to do. In many cases employers outsource work that can be completed more proficiently elsewhere; thereby allowing the company the opportunity to work in their core competencies. In other words, they concentrate on what they do best. This concept was developed in the early seventies by manufacturing executives and has grown to just about every other business industry possible.
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Typical manufacturing companies now outsource about 70 to 80 percent of their work. Executives now do about one-third of their clerical functions through outsourcing. That figure is projected to grow 70 to 80 percent within the next decade. For both managers and employees, this creates different skill sets. Perhaps specialized skills will be attractive to those that provide the outsourcing. At any rate, outsourcing has the potential to make companies much more productive and competitive.
Information Technology was one of the first knowledge-based industries to experience outsourcing and it remains one of the most visible and lucrative forms of offshore outsourcing today.
But it is by no means the only one, and there is a list of other forms of knowledge-based work that are being shipped overseas, to be carried out in the Philippines, India, China, or...