Wednesday, June 4, 2014
TWIF Flattener #5 - Outsourcing
Use one of the current events sources linked at http://svhs-hwc-fall2014.blogspot.com/2014/06/approved-sources-for-twif-current.html to find a recent news article that relates to, supports, or refutes Friedman's assertion that outsourcing was a "flattener." Your comment should include the title of the news article, a link to the article, and a summary of the article including an explanation of how the article relates to this point. Don't forget to check your rubric for evaluation criteria!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/business/small-business-joining-a-parade-of-outsourcing.html module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A14%22%7D&_r=0
ReplyDeleteSmall Business, Joining a Parade of Outsourcing
This article addresses the trend of looking in foreign nations for workers that are willing to work for less pay. The article says that at one point, only big businesses outsourced, but now small businesses are joining in. The technique of outsourcing allows businesses to cut costs. The article attributes this trend to the growing capability of doing work online digitally. This means that foreign workers can work with businesses half way around the world without traveling. Often the work is involving software design or technology support, which is something that can be managed from anywhere in the world due to the advances in technology. This is exactly what Friedman talked about in his section on the flattener “outsourcing.” Friedman stated that people in countries such as America were looking to countries such as India for workers, because the Indian workers were willing to work for much less than American workers. Friedman stated that due to the technology advances of the twenty-first century, outsourcing has become a possible and valuable tool for businesses as it is shown in this article.
“As Traditional Industries Are Declining, Outsourcing, Offshoring and Subcontracting Are Booming” (No Author Given)
ReplyDeleteThe Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21604686-traditional-industries-are-declining-outsourcing-offshoring-and-subcontracting-are?zid=292&ah=165a5788fdb0726c01b1374d8e1ea285
In The World Is Flat, Friedman discusses outsourcing in India. He states that the formation of the Dot-com Bubble made outsourcing to India easy because of the fiber-optic cables. Also, the burst of this bubble caused companies to lose a large amount of the money that they invested in fiber-optics, so they had to outsource to save money. While Friedman talks about outsourcing in India, this article discusses how outsourcing is now a major industry in Poland. Lately, Poland’s major industries, such as ship-making and coal mining, are fading and countless companies are going out of business. Now because the country’s population size, lower wages, and high work standards, many companies now outsource to Poland. In fact, many companies now do Research and Development in Poland, and the country’s most famous city, Wroclaw, aspires to become a center for R&D. This article relates to Friedman’s flatteners because it discusses the rise of outsourcing in Poland following the outsourcing boom in India.
Living on Call Center Time in the Philippines
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pri.org/stories/2013-08-12/living-call-center-time-philippines
In The World Is Flat, Friedman discusses how outsourcing allowed the United States to send basic jobs that can be performed simply to another country to be completed more efficiently, for a lower price, or even both. In this article, the Philippines at the call center are doing the simpler jobs more efficiently, but instead of the low prestige job it would be here, working at a call center is very important there. This means that the call center workers will work hard and quickly to get their jobs done for a lower price than what the average worker in the states would accept. The call center clerks earn about $400 a month for completely changing their culture and learning to live off of American times, which is still cheaper than a worker in the United States working 20 hours a month at a minimum wage of $7.25, who would earn a total of $580.
U.S. firms outsource legal services to India
ReplyDeleteBy Cynthia Cotts and Liane Kufchock
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-law.4.7199252.html?_r=0
Friedman mentions outsourcing quite frequently throughout the 1st chapter of The World is Flat and continues with a section of the 2nd chapter strictly devoted to outsourcing abroad. He described Bangalore India as an outsourcing hub with many established businesses using its available workers for their human resources department. Other tasks were also stated in the reading, such as Texas Instrument’s development headquarters. In the article above, Cynthia Cotts and Liane Kufchock expain how U.S. firms are outsourcing some legal services to India. These new jobs consist of mainly lower tiered work and contain document centers or any low-end work needed. Robert Profusek, co-head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Jones Day in New York basically stated that the goal for these firms is to have the most skilled lawyers in New York or London and ship the rest of the work to India. He believes in sending all of the grunt work to India just as Friedman described throughout the book. On another note, Janine Dascenzo, the GE managing counsel for legal operations stated that “’India has very talented lawyers,”’ she said. “’But it's a misconception that you can just send work there and it gets done. You need proper supervision and security.”’ Friedman also said that without supervision, larger ventures into outsourcing will not be accomplished. Later in the article, a small segment of the text explained that these young Indian law graduates are trying to get recognized for their hard work and possibly move up the food chain to some of the higher positions offered in the major cities around the globe. Correspondingly, the rest of the file is a debate between high ranking lawyers on offshoring entire firms or divisions to India. This article expands Friedman’s idea of outsourcing with new expansions in legal services and often agrees with a few ideas mentioned in The World is Flat.
“How the Philippines is crushing the Indian call center business”
ReplyDeleteby: Patrick Winn
http://theweek.com/article/index/261311/how-the-philippines-is-crushing-the-indian-call-center-business
In Flattener number five, Friedman explains the concept of “outsourcing”, which is the collaboration of business to a third party in a cost-efficient and effective way. He explains how India became a country full of high-qualified, highly skilled professionals in need of jobs. At the same time, the fiber optic boom allowed any “service, call center, business, or knowledge that could be digitized to be outsourced”. As a result many businesses in America took advantage of this opportunity and hired workers from India because of how efficient it was to collaborate through technology, the Internet, and fiber optics.
The article by Patrick Win explains how the Indian call centers are having a problem with accents. According to the article, India has lost seventy percent of its call center industry to the Philippines. The head of India’s Associated Chambers of Commerce states that, “Employees in Philippines call centers speak English fluently with a neutral accent, which customers look for and that is something missing in Indian accents”. Filipinos have assimilated into American culture. English is taught in the public schools and many Filipinos are experts on pop culture, therefore allowing them to interact with American customers on a more personal level. This article relates to Friedman’s discussion on outsourcing and how it has helped flatten the world. Friedman discussed the rise of outsourcing in India, but the world has changed and the new place to outsource is the Philippines.
With Tech Outsourcing, The Internet Can Be 'A Scary Place'
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/26/282935216/with-tech-outsourcing-the-internet-can-be-a-scary-place
In Chapter 2, Friedman discusses outsourcing in India. He explains that if Simon & Schuster had books typed into a computer in America, it would cost about one thousand dollars a month. Instead, the company ships its books to India and has them digitized for fifty dollars a month. This article describes the dangers that come with the low costs of outsourcing in the technology industry. It states that at the RSA Conference in February, outsourcing was a major point when discussing the causes of cybercrime and data theft. While outsourcing saves a company an immense amount of money, the consequence in the technology industry can be data theft. This relates to Friedman’s statement because while he describes the positive aspect of saving money because of outsourcing, the article shows the downside of cybercrime and data theft due to outsourcing.
"Outsourcing 2.0: India May Now Become a Hub for Creative Work"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pri.org/stories/2012-04-20/outsourcing-20-india-may-now-become-hub-creative-work
In chapter 2 of The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman discusses how outsourcing to India can help companies, mainly through cheaper labor. However, this article discusses how outsourcing in India can help with artists. In the article it explains how a man used India's low video production cost to make his own music video. One thing that he liked about outsourcing to India, besides the low cost, is he used Indian people in his music video, exposing the culture to people who watch it. This article builds on Friedman's idea of outsourcing for a lower cost, but also explains how the Indian culture can be used in certain types of art such as music and still have the cheap labor from the outsourcing.