An Ethical and Global Analysis of Software Offshore Outsourcing
Introduction
Before acquiring its current negative connotation, outsourcing referred to the practice of turning over parts of a business to a company that specialized in that activity. For instance, Cisco Systems, Brocade Communications, and other leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) outsource their manufacturing to Solectron Corporation, where I was a summer intern. By partnering with Solectron, OEMs can gain access to the latest equipment, process knowledge, and manufacturing expertise without making substantial capital investments. In essence, outsourcing to Solectron enables OEMs to focus on their core competencies of research and development and sales
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Now, skilled workers are finding that education isn't enough, not when an Indian worker is just as educated and is willing to do the same job for a fraction of the pay. A microchip designer or financial analyst makes $7,000 a month in the United States. The same worker in India earns $1,000 a month.1 Significant cost savings, gaining access to skills not found elsewhere, and providing access to a new market all contribute to the popularity of offshore outsourcing. Nonetheless, if software outsourcing continues, those with less-creative software jobs who update antiquated code, fix bugs, and perform routine programming tasks2 should prepare themselves for career upheaval.
Meanwhile, in India… 3
The thousands of technically astute, English-speaking graduates of India’s elite universities are riding America’s outsourcing wave. Blue-Chip companies IBM, Oracle, and Intel have already established a presence in India, as have promising start-ups. India increasingly is landing high-skilled, highly paid positions for engineers, accountants and financial analysts formerly employed in the United States. West Palm Beach-based Ocwen Financial Corp. offers a case study in how companies are cashing in on India's allure. Seeking to cut labor costs, Ocwen has hired hundreds of workers during the past two years in India, where skilled workers are plentiful and wages are low. Ocwen, which once had nearly 1,000 employees at its Palm Beach Lakes
Despite that an excessively excellent image of outsourcing was provided to individuals one or two of years back, the truth check they were confronted with shattered the dream badly. Recent statistics reveal that over four-hundredth corporations are concerned either in experimenting or are already engaged in shifting their services overseas in search of low-cost labor and services that are being provided by countries like China and Bharat. Such efforts have left native market labor at extreme disadvantage wherever they're finding it vastly tedious to create each ends meet, leave behind the back-breaking burden of taxes they're being obligatory to. With over four-hundredth major company executives registering their opinion by discouraging the method of outsourcing the controversy that was antecedently being won by the
“Outsourcing refers to the practice of contracting workers outside of a company or business for work duties or services previously performed by company employees or “in-house”. This practice is also often referred to as offshoring due to the increasingly prevalent use of “non-U.S.” service providers for these outsourced duties. However, strictly speaking, outsourcing can and does refer to the use of contracted labor provided by individuals outside of an organization, but still within the U.S.; whereas when these same services are provided outside the U.S., it is both outsourcing and offshoring.”
This documental was made by Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist in 2004, he had written a lot of articles about globalism. He starts interviewing the employees of a call center located in India. The experience he
The dawn of the outsourcing era. Many large U.S. corporations cultivates outsourcing faster than we can imagine. The trend that began in the late 1970 and picked up speed in the 1900s with the opening trade with China, India, and Eastern Europe (“Outsourcing: What’s the true Impact”). In its broadest sense, outsourcing is simply contracting out functions that had been done in-house—a longtime U.S. practice (“Globalization: Threat or Opportunity”). Subsequently, outsourcing is an essential part of globalization; and it is the combination of markets through the cooperation of internalization, federal, and state governments with corporate companies to produce products on a reduce production cost, and offer services on lower labor cost. When a U.S. manufacture product, and buys material from an intermediate supplier from out of the country rather than producing them in-house, that is what is called outsourcing. Also, when U.S. corporation hires outside contractor out-of-the-country to do U.S. call center services for less labor cost that is outsourcing. When a company deals out its operational task, such as payroll, accounting, and software operations that is outsourcing. Obviously, all of these examples seem to benefit and in favor of the corporations. To get the clear understanding of outsourcing for major corporation perspective, I have interviewed IKEA’s U.S. Deputy Retail Country Manager Rob Olson about outsourcing—Swedish
While outsourcing may be beneficial to some of the companies partaking in it, the general consensus is that it ultimately proves to be harmful to the American workforce. The act of outsourcing and shifting many company call centers and technical support teams, or “low skill service jobs,” to foreign countries reduces jobs for those that could truly benefit from them within our own country. The unemployment rate has dramatically increased, and continues to rise, compared to what it has been in years past; yet there are numerous companies which still insist on handing over these “low skill service jobs” to people in other countries such as India. The most obvious and logical reason for outsourcing is reducing costs; people are working for
By 2004, more than 80 percent of U.S. executive boardrooms will have discussed offshore sourcing, and more than 40 percent of U.S. enterprises will have completed some type of pilot or will be sourcing IT (information technology) services. In fact, some of the biggest firms in the United States have been seriously discussing outsourcing recently. One of these companies being IBM, the world's biggest computer maker, discussed saving about $168 million beginning in 2006 by moving thousands of programming jobs overseas, according to internal information provided. U.S. businesses, battered by the recent three year bear market in stocks and an economy struggling to find its footing, have already developed a taste for super cheap labor in developing countries, where workers are increasingly better trained especially if they've spent significant time working in the United States on temporary visas. The impact of overseas outsourcing could be significant; many economists doubt the trend is big enough yet to disrupt the broader U.S. economy. Imports of business services account for less than 1/20 of 1 percent of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economy. At the least, it's not doing much to end the longest U.S. labor-market slump since World War II. More than 9.3 million people are
Early on into the play, three witches predict Macbeth’s fate. The witches told him that they saw him as Scotland’s future king. Macbeth’s destiny relies on the witches because they manipulate his life with magic, but it can also rely on free will as well. Even though the witches predict his future, Macbeth can always change his future with different choices he makes. Free will caused Macbeth to fall, because even though his future was seen by the witches, he could always change that future by making different choices along the way.
Power and attention are two things that people are most desperate for; however, when the desire gets out of hand it can lead to suffering and isolation. Many writers like Shakespeare portrays power and attention in their play. Macbeth, for example, is a tragedy about how Lady Macbeth’s ambition for power and attention is caused by Macbeth, her husband, since he is out at war a lot Lady Macbeth is left alone. The desire for power and attention slowly creep into her mind as she persuades Macbeth to kill, leading to horrifying guilt that leads to her suicide.
Supporters argue that outsourcing has a minimal effect on job losses, and has increased economic growth in some cases. In actuality, outsourcing has decreased the domestic economy by decimating job opportunities and lowering wages. Steven Pearlstein, economics columnist for the Washington post reaffirmed arguments that outsourcing has decreased employment availability and stability of the economy by saying “There are growing numbers of people who think that what started as a sensible, globalized extension of sending some work outside a firm to specialized companies may in fact be creating long-term structural unemployment in the United States, hollowing out entire industries”. (Pearlstein 3) The IT industry has been especially affected by outsourcing, with many jobs moving overseas to India and Bangladesh, leaving employees in the United States without a job, unable to compete with lower wage offerings. Supporters of outsourcing argue that this business strategy increases everyone’s productivity, raising everyone’s income, and boosting economic growth. Many such studies tend to focus on large multinational corporations, for which the data and anecdotes are more readily available. And indeed, during the 1990s, the data seemed to show that for every one job added abroad, companies added almost two new
“If they would rather die,… they had better do it and Decrease the surplus population”
Somehow other countries outsourcing may be slow for in India because of the uncertainty and lack of credibility that exists within the Indian market (Kalegaonkar A., Nov 4, 2008). This may be an obstacle for Clinigene. Moreover, with
In the past decade the topic of outsourcing has become a heavily debated subject on if it is ethically correct to outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. Outsourcing has become more and more an option for many companies and not just an economic fad. The decision to outsource is a difficult one for any company to make because there are many advantages and disadvantages to consider. The decision to outsource affects many people, communities, and industries so if a corporation decides to outsource they must consider how it will affect human dignity, the common good of the economy, and subsidiary.
Outsourcing refers to hiring an outside, independent firm to perform a business function that internal employees might otherwise perform. Many organizations outsource jobs to specialized service companies, which frequently operate abroad. The outsourcing trend stands to continue; the latest wave of outsourcing impacts the information technology field. IT outsourcing includes data center operations, desktop and help desk support, software development, e-commerce outsourcing, software applications services, network operations and disaster recovery.2
“Today, Indian outsourcing is one of the best ways for CIOs to cut application development and maintenance costs, and deal effectively with the peaks and valleys of software demands.” (Yeo). Outsourcing to India is still focused primarily on highly technological aspects, but is not limited there. They are known for creative development in the pharmaceutical field, and have recently developed an unsurpassed medication for adult ADHD. Their superior IT assistance is not limited to companies, they offer many websites for individuals seeking help with programming. In mid 2007, U.S. outsourcing to India reached $4.9 billion. Although technologically advanced, they still lag in economic prosperity and therefore still don’t expect the type of compensation that Americans do. “They
Outsourcing is when a company purchases products or services from an outside supplier rather than performing the same work within its own facilities, in order to cut costs. In other words, outsourcing is an organization's contractual relationship with a specialized outside service provider for work traditionally done internally by that organization. The decision to outsource is a major strategic one for most companies because it involves weighing the potential cost saving against the consequences of a loss in control over the product or service. Some common examples of outsourcing include manufacturing of components, computer programming services, tax compliance and other accounting functions, as well as payroll and other