Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Research Paper_ Is there a Future of Outsourcing?

Is there a Future of Outsourcing?

In “Outsourcing impact on business, jobs and economies of wealthy and poor nations,” Patrick (n.d.), explains, “We need to take urgent action to reduce costs. If we don’t run our business efficiently, everyone could lose his or her jobs. People who have entrusted their life-savings to us (mainly pensioners), will go elsewhere” (para.24). In the 1990’s managers started to make dealing with newly formed service company, as a result, outsourcing starts to work inside out of the business and become one of important system of business. In those days, many companies made a profit. However, the situation is changed which companies realize little profit or cannot get any good results, lately, because there are too many problem from the outsourcing. The goal of business is making money, but companies do not pay much more than before. People who want to make good use of outsourcing in their companies have to know what the problems are from the applying outsourcing. Because of outsourcing, it is easy to make employees unsettled feeling and cause many problems from the managing supplier. Therefore, sometimes, there is impossibility to get any outcome

The American Heritage Dictionary defines outsourcing as "To send out (work, for example) to an outside provider or manufacturer in order to cut costs" (“outsourcing”). Outsourcing is similar to off shoring. Off shoring is defined by Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English as the practice of moving business processes or services to another country, especially, overseas, to reduce costs (“off shoring”). These two words can be the same. Historically, outsourcing was not formally identified as a business strategy until 1989. In the 1990's managers started to make contracts with newly formed service companies (2006, para.2). Currently, companies are trying to make strategic partnerships with other companies. The controversy is the big business owners hurt America because of outsourcing but business owner still say they have to outsource in order to stay in business (2006, para.1). Businesses say the reason is they have to compete with other countries like China. Therefore, these companies had to downsize and many people lost their jobs. Every year, many jobs continue to leave America because of outsourcing. This argument by the business owners does not convince many people like Robby Spurlin, a senior at Appalachian State University. "The loss of the textile jobs in Surry County since NAFTA took effect is bad enough," Spurlin said. "But it gets worse when you think about the trickle-down effect on the entire community and more people having to live paycheck to paycheck" (2004, para.1).

Not everything about outsourcing is bad for American people. America has benefited from other countries outsourcing to the U.S. As the Wall Street Journal Reports "The balance of jobs we import from abroad greatly exceeds the jobs we export abroad. Every time a foreign company decides to build a plant or opens an office in the U.S. Americans are put to work to man these facilities" (n.d. para.3). This may possible be true for America overall, but sometimes a small community relies on a single large company to provide the community with its wealth. If the company leaves the community will be devastate. Outsourcing makes employees feel insecure. Outsourcing usually means a company will downsize because of company offshore to other country. There is no worse feeling than losing a job. Some research estimates that “3.3 million white-collar jobs will move overseas by 2015,” and also, according to projections, “the hardest hit sectors will be financial services and information technology" (2004, para.8). This information alone sounds bad but to make it worse, Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina (2004) said in a testimony in front of Congress "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore" (para.2). A lot of employees are becoming more worried about job security. All this worry makes an employee feel uneasy and an uneasy employee is not very productive.

First, sometimes a company will not see any results from outsourcing. In fact, if a company is not careful, they can lose money. Frank Coyle, IT director at John Menzies Distribution, warned of the consequences of not using outsourcing selectively and intelligently. "The disasters occur, typically, when an accountant somewhere tries to make a name for them by convincing the board to outsource the whole department, thus, losing control of a critical business area. The problem then becomes one of trying to get the genie back into the bottle - not so easy," (2005, para.9). Therefore, a lot of time and thought needs to be spent deciding if outsourcing is the best choice for a company. In addition, there are many considerations such as geographical problems like language problems, accent problems, political instability, change in laws and regulations, labor laws, cultural issues (n.d.para.2). There are many bad stories about companies that are trying to start business in a foreign country like the classic Chevy Nova story. Chevy tried to sell the Nova car in Mexico and realized that "Nova" means "no go" is Spanish. These problems can occur even if a company is not outsourcing to a foreign country (n.d, para.5). To sum it up, Steve Ritchie, CIO at Investcor, says it best "Does outsourcing deliver cost savings? Sometimes does it improve customer service? Sometimes does it consistently deliver both? Almost certainly not" (2005, para.10).

Finally, it is hard for a company to control their subcontractors. Subcontracting in some countries can be a little risky because an unintended result of exported our businesses is "Almost as much goes out the back door of these factories as gray-market goods as goes out the front door. The companies will be forced to deal with competing in the marketplace against their own goods" (Virgin, B, 2003, para.18). One can see how this can be a problem. Another problem a company had with their subcontractors is quality control. It was Mattel's toy recall. Veiga, A. (2007) from the Washington post states "Mattel previously said many of the toys were recalled because of design problems. It also said certain vendors in China or their subcontractors violated Mattel's rules by failing to use safe paint or to run tests on paint" (p.2). This hurt Mattel’s image because worried parents do not want to buy products from Mattel now. Mattel apologized to China. Why did they apologize to China? According to Navarro (2007), a business professor at the University of California, "Mattel is worried that the Chinese government is going to make it difficult for them to produce, put their costs up and hurt their stock price" (p.1). Even businesses, which hired subcontractors from the same country, have the similiar problems. Some people have recently complained about major flaws in their homes. Lesh, the president of the American Society of Home Inspectors "Most builders hire subcontractors for virtually everything today," he said. "Years ago, they tended to work with their own guys. Now they don't know who the guys are. So they often don't know what kind of work is going on" (2007, para.2). As you can see, it is hard to make a relationship with customers by using contractors.

In conclusion, several years ago, outsourcing started to become a problem. Companies outsourced many jobs to another country, therefore, these companies had to downsize and a lots of employees lost their jobs. Outsourcing started to threaten employees’ livelihood and make employees feel uneasy. Businesses never can succeed without employees. Businesses need to be careful when outsourcing because there are no guarantee results from outsourcing. Also, subcontractor can cause different kinds of problems to companies. Outsourcing may not have a positive long term effects for businesses, and also American economy. Successful businesses need to have a sharp eye for good result for company. Several years ago, outsourcing started to become a problem. Companies outsourced many jobs to another country. On the other hand, outsourcing is just one of several problems a business has to worry about. If a business wants to start outsource, they should know about them in order to succeed.









Reference

Craver R. (2004) North Carolina college students feel effects of outsourcing on job searches. Access My Library.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7674794_ITM

Dan Rafter D. (2007, September 15) Even high-end homes can hide huge flaws. Washiongtonpost.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.washingtonpost.com

Dixon, P. (n.d.) Outsourcing impact on business, jobs and economies of wealthy and poor nation. Globalchange.com Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://www.globalchange.com/outsourcing.htm

Don't go here (2007, February 19). Snopes.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

Drezner, D. (2004). The outsourcing bogeyman. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved September 29, 2007, from http://www.foreignaffairs.org

Handfield, R. (2006, May 31). A brief history of outsourcing. SCRC.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://scm.ncsu.edu/public/facts/facs060531.html

Mccue, A. (2005, June 2). CIO Jury: Does outsourcing work? Silicon.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://management.silicon.com/itdirector/0,39024673,39130905,00.htm

Off shoring. (2006, September 26). Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English. Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/offshoring

Outsourcing. (2006). The American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/outsourcing

Outsourcing problem (n.d.). Go4customer.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.go4customer.com/outsourcing-problem.htm

Veiga, A. (2007, September 21). Mattel apologizes to China over recalls. Washingtonpost.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.washingtonpost.com

Virgin, B. (2003, August 7). As jobs flow overseas, the controversy deepens. Settlepi.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/virgin/133963_virgin07.html

Wriston W. (2004, May 6). Outsourcing controversy overlook. CarreerJournal.com Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/perspective/20040506-fmp.html

Summary _ Fighting Corruption Is a Global Concern

Fighting Corruption Is a Global Concern

In Zussman's(2005) article, "Fighting corruption is a global concern," he explains that the location of anti-corruption meeting was at Beijing. Transparency International supplied a report on corruption all over the world and showed that giving information to the people on anti-corruption issue is important. There have been many attempts on removing corruption in the public and private sectors by many nations and international associations. The UNDP said that the World Bank at $1 trillion U.S. estimates the total amount of bribes paid around the world per annum, more than 10 times the total amount of development aid for needy nations. Therefore, many countries are busy trying to stop corruption. The general thinking from the association is that there are four elements to implement in an anti-corruption strategy. First, there has to be adequate laws in place. Second, all citizens must be knowledgeable of the laws and there consequences. Third, there must be strong enforcement of policies. Finally, the right people have to be in leadership positions. Canada continues to do well with its laws and policies designed to stop corruption.

I think anti-corruption meeting at Beijing is helpful all over the world, except few communism countries such as North Korea and Cuba. According to the article, it is clear that corruption is a big problem everywhere. Every country should go same way with Canada because, according to the article, Canada has better laws and policies to stop corruption than other countries.


< Reference >

Zussman, D.(2005, October11). Fighting corruption is a global concern. Ottawa Citizen.

Arguement Paper_ Is Wal-Mart beneficial?

Is Wal-Mart beneficial?

If people do not have a car, it will be hard to get daily products because Wal-Mart is located in a vacant place, which is far from your house. Why do we have to buy daily products at Wal-Mart, which is far from our home? The reason is that Wal-Mart makes small shops around your home go out of business. In few years, Wal-Mart will be the only place to get something, and maybe we have to buy a car from Wal-Mart. If we do not want to make our future like this, you should know why Wal-Mart is not beneficial for us. Wal-Mart is not beneficial because of bad quality, bad service and it is harmful business practices for American economy.

First, it sells bad quality products. Wal-Mart’s goal is to make money by selling many products which are cheap. Maybe that is why some people like to buy products at Wal-Mart. However, sometimes we need to go to Wal-Mart again after we buy something to exchange or return because of its bad quality. For example, clothes in Wal-Mart are not fashionable and
the material is made of is low quality. Moreover, generally, we cannot expect to buy good quality fresh food in Wal-Mart because “cheap” equals “bad quality.” If we do not waste our valuable time exchanging bad quality products, we should not make people sick because of bad quality food. Nobody want to get a risk from bad quality products.

Second, Wal-Mart does not have good service. We can ask anything about products at a small market if we want, but not at Wal-Mart. The employees in Wal-Mart are hard workers, but they get low pay. Do you think they feel like to working?
How can we expect good service? We can not because most employees are not to proud of their job themselves. In addition, the worst point is about Wal-Mart their unsatisfactory training. Sellers have to know about products and have to answer consumer’s questions; therefore, definitely we can not expect the answer about the products. How can we expect good service? They have so many products that the employees can not be expected to know details or price of a particular products. They are not professionals and they can not know about every product because Wal-Mart is not like small shops.
In addition, we can not special order. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart does not want to order products which are sold out already, for just one consumer. For example, if they do not have product that we want, we must look for another shop. People do not have a choice and they will buy from somewhere. In contrast, we can special order if we need at a small shop. We can
claim our rights because we are consumers. In fact, they do not have to do because even though they have so many consumers. Most consumers lose sight of this fact.

Finally, Wal-Mart is harmful to the American economy. Nearly all American small shops have been put out of business due to the cheap prices and convenience that Wal-Mart brings. Already in some small towns across America Wal-Mart is the only place to buy daily products families need. If Wal-Mart were to raise the prices drastically, or stop the business for a few days, then imagine what will happen to these small towns. Wal-Mart’s all products are cheap. As people know, the reason Wal-Mart can sell products so cheaply is because they buy their products from companies in China, Indonesia, India, and other countries. Wal-Mart does not buy from American companies. Because of this reason, they are hurting American economy. We should claim our rights ourselves to Wal-Mart.

Some people argue that Wal-Mart is beneficial because it is the cheapest place to buy products. Poorer people usually
have to work many hours just to make a living. Therefore, Wal-Mart is nice because a poorer person can buy cheap food,
cheap clothes at the same store and then go back to his busy life. This helps poorer people buy goods they need. However,
because Wal-Mart has such great influence in America if they were to buy all products which made in America demand for
goods made in America would increase. As a result, there would be better paying jobs available to the poorer people in
America.

Wal-Mart has worse quality products and service than small shops, and it hurts American economy. Korean people are
pickier about quality and service, therefore, even though Wal-Mart, which opened in Korea, it failed. If we need to buy
something, we do not have to drive across town, we can walk to shop down the street. Let us be like Koreans and not shop
at Wal-Mart.