Case 3
The International Firm in a Global Economy
ECCO A/S – Global Value Chain Management
Question 1: 1. Relate the Ecco case to the conceptualization of the organization as a global factory. What similarities and dissimilarities with the global factory conceptualization do you see and what solutions may it present?
Similarities: As ECCO had been very successful in the footwear industry by focusing on production technology and assuring quality by maintaining full control of the entire value chain, ECCO grew and faced increased international competition, various value chain activities. The global factory conceptualization need a fully integrated value chain to tied up significant capital and management attention in tanneries
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Therefore, manufacturers face a trade-off between gain from the efficient technology and loss from paying the information rent. When a firm decides on in-house production instead of outsourcing, although a manufacturer can obtain the entire profit, it loses the gain from the cost efficiency of outsourcing. When outsourcing is selected, although a manufacturer can acquire the gain from cost efficiency, it is required to share the gain with the outsourcer.
The objective of these establishments, apart from achieving labor cost savings, was to spread risk. Initially, the various production sites were capable of producing the same types of shoes, indicating an insignificant degree of specialization in the production units. However, in recent years ECCO had strived to narrow each unit and capitalize on its core competencies.
We should consider this trade-off from ECCO case, between in-house production and outsourcing when faced with cost uncertainty and competition with a rival manufacturer in a differentiated goods market. When the management decides on selecting organizational forms, technological uncertainty on production activities often ensues. Thus, a manufacturer faces uncertainty when choosing between in-house production and outsourcing. Moreover, because almost all modern firms are in a competitive position, they have to choose organizational forms and take the
Because many businesses in the US have more often began outsourcing different business products instead of doing them in-house, it is important to understand why outsourcing may be the best option. Although many tie outsourcing to foreign markets, outsourcing can include both foreign and domestic markets. By entering into a contractual agreement, outsourcing allows organizations to pay for services they need. This gives the option for a business to get professionals to perform services for them that the business may not have the staff for. Outsourcing provides a cost saving-strategy that is usually more affordable. Ultimately,
Outsourcing is a method used by many corporations in which their products are manufactured in foreign countries often for cheaper labor.This method method of productions has it’s pros and cons.
(Pearlson,2001). Cost is the most important factor when the enterprise make a decision of insourcing or outsourcing. If the company produce the products or service on its own, there are costs more than producing, which can include investments of researching, training, and equipment.The investment of insourcing can be a lot more than the outsourcing because of economies of scale.Outsourcing providers can gain significant savings from economies of scale, which client companies usually can’t get on its own(Pearlson,2001). This benefit could be magnified in IT outsourcing.In the case of Project Harmony, as a food company, Campbell soup was a lack of sufficient scale within their own IS departments and IT technical expertise, so the saving between outsourcing and insourcing was significant.To conclude, cost reducing is the first of core benefits of outsourcing due to economies of
In light of recent growth of domestic and foreign countries outsourcing and off shoring over seas, companies been taken advantage of the cheap labor cost for outsourcing and off shoring manufacturing. Competitive business investing in domestic and foreign manufacturing have affects every part of the business industries from design, software development, finances and logistic management, i.e., customer and sales. Nevertheless, outsourcing been praised by businesses for outcomes of cost-effectiveness, efficient, productive and strategic, but damned as malicious, because of companies’ greediness, detrimental, and brutal in the public eyes.
In business, the outsourcing involves the contracting out of a business process to another party. In this case, USTech has outsourced its product to TaiSource. As a result, USTech enjoys TaiSource’s world-class research, design, and lower manufacturing costs. USTech gets the benefits of direct sourcing in China without the hassle of coordinating it. But this behavior has some inherent limitations. USTech is afraid that TaiSource could reap its confidential information and start its new brand in Mainland China. Therefore, a global enterprise should weigh the pros and cons of its outsourcing strategy.
Therefore, outsourcing is challenging for companies because they are several tasks involve in this process. For example: selecting the correct provider of outsourcing, what is the company’s goal, identifying the core and non-core business activities, defining the process that should be keep it in-house or the activities that are better to outsource, to a country that works based on the comparative advantage. Consequently the main propose of outsourcing is to lower costs, and this can cause a direct impact in labor rights.
Manufacturing firms shift their cost structure by changing the mix of variable and fixed costs. One way of doing this is by decreasing the use of permanent labor and outsourcing the work. Automation is also another technique to reduce labor. However, options such as outsourcing can have a negative effect on cost. For instance, it does not have much control over its workforce when it outsources. This means it may not be able to hike up production to meet a sudden rise in demand
Strategic factors include keeping competition high and not relying on just one factory for manufacturing. ECCO has several plants that manufacture the shoes and deal with tanning, which is good for competition and to keep quality high.
Outsourcing is defined as "the process of purchasing goods and services from outside vendors rather than producing the same goods or providing the same services within the organization." Outsourcing does not come without risks, but it also has its benefits as well. Gaining services or products from outside sources can be very beneficial, considering the alternative that the firm will have to produce them themselves. However, on main risk that is incurred when outsourcing is that when a firm does outsource, they leave the supply of that product or service in the hands of someone of whom they cannot control, contrary to controlling their own supply. Ethical issues are at hand here, as well as trust issues. As you will see in this paper, many different opinions about outsourcing are present among different financial investors and financial officers. Management teams and management leaders are the head personnel that weigh the pro 's and con 's of outsourcing, and this paper will briefly summarize the various opinions, pro 's, con 's, large benefits, and ethical issues dealing with outsourcing.
Though outsourcing offers many potential benefits for product development as it may be used to speed up processes and reduce staffing costs; these benefits are speculated and not always certain. As a result, organizations must not overlook the possibilities of failure due to outsourcing. Because of the inherent nature of outsourcing, vital jobs are extremely distant from central headquarters, and control is essentially being shared and sometimes completely transferred to a third party (Rozet, 2009). Some innovation risks associated with outsourcing product development include loss of confidentiality, possible losses of technological core competencies, loss of managerial control, loss of control of outsourced activities, and hidden costs
The pioneering success of GE’s experiment in outsourcing brought other companies in emulating it as a recognition of the fact that outsourcing added value by way of cost reduction and better labour (Anandkumar & Subhasish Biswas 2008).
Outsourcing can sometimes pose as a mistake if not done enough or not done at all. The benefits can be extremely helpful especially when workers from countries such as Pakistan or the Philippines depend on high-income countries like the United States for their main source of wealth. This creates an income distribution that is more likely to be equal or fair than if global outsourcing was not readily accomplished by small businesses. As both the article and textbook discuss similar views on small businesses outsourcing products, there is still one challenge that will always exist: competition among
Outsourcing can be defined as ‘the strategic use of outside sources to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff and resources’. In this strategy, the organizations contract out major functions of their manufacturing products to more specialized and efficient service providers, who later become valued business partners. It looks more like a simple supplementation of resources by subcontracting, but it is actually different to outsourcing. In actual outsourcing, the organization is also involved in substantial restructuring of particular business activities including, often, the transfer of staff from a host company to a specialist, usually smaller, company with the required core competencies. The current stage in the evolution of outsourcing is all about the
The strategic effort of outsourcing is to allow concentration on what the organization does best. In addition, outsourcing assist companies to acquire cost advantage by tabbing into cheap labour; identifying companies with high competency level in the area outsourcing is required; and adds value to the overall process of the organization. However, it is important to note that as mentioned by Child (2005) if outsourcing is not carefully considered the organization may be prone to failure. Therefore, it is very crucial that various elements be thoroughly considered before deciding on what aspect of the organization to outsource.
Outsourcing should only be implemented when a company’s core competitive advantages are not affected and then when