What is Outsourcing? It is a method in which companies subcontract labor and support to outside agencies (Klepper, 1997). How, why, and who companies outsource to are quickly becoming social topics of discussion in our society. Everyone seems to have an opinion on outsourcing. I bet that I can walk into a social gathering right now and hear discussions like "outsourcing is good for the American consumer" or outsourcing takes jobs away from all of the hard working Americans." In either case, outsourcing has raised great concerns over its effects on the American economy. In this paper, I will discuss the types of outsourcing, pros and cons associated with outsourcing, management views of outsourcing, employee views of outsourcing, and give my opinion of outsourcing.
What does outsourcing do? It enables companies to focus on the mission at hand, to save money and be competitive. Depending on a Company's needs determines the type of outsourcing that company may use (Embleton, 1998). Outsourcing is a very diverse market, and there are many different outsourcing options from. Two common types of outsourcing I will focus on are Information Technology (IT) outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) (Bowen, 1998).
Through research, I found that Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing is a rapidly growing market. I.T. outsourcing enables companies to continue to manage their core business, while outside agencies manage their technology needs (Bowen, 1998). It's a way of getting rid of those high paid, college graduated employees. I.T. outsourcing allows companies to use cost-cutting methods to cover computing needs, large mainframe and midrange data center, manage numerous networks and run desktops across the globe (Bowen, 1998). Advantages of outsourcin ...