Even at a time when outsourcing was not officially known as a business strategy, most establishments were not totally self-contained; functions for which they had no competency internally were outsourced. For instance, publishers would buy composition, printing, and fulfillment services. Employing suppliers for these important but secondary tasks could be viewed as the early beginnings of outsourcing. The next step was to outsource support services.
In the early 20th century, most companies tried to "own, manage, and directly control" all their assets. By the middle of the century, companies were branching out and expanding their corporate bases. Companies believed that having a broad base would protect their profits, even though expansion required multiple layers of management. This resulted in their having to deal with complexities in the management structure and the inability to be agile. In the last decade of the century, organisations began to concentrate on tightening their budgets by outsourcing particular functions to achieve cost efficiencies. This was when they realised that if they focus on their core business and outsource other functions, they will gain flexibility and creativity.
Prior to the IT revolution, there were a number of organisations in the US which outsourced manufacturing jobs to countries like Canada, Mexico and South America in order to cut costs. At present, outsourcing involves a strategic relationship between the company and the service provider. Till some time back, it was clear that companies would not outsource competencies that were core to them, as they set them apart and gave them an edge. This generally included any customer-facing functions. Now companies realise that outsourcing some of their core functions is a sound tactic and not inadvisable. As you know, a number of companies currently have their customer service handled by their service provider, emphasising the importance of the function.
It was considered a radical move when Eastman Kodak decided to outsource their IT systems which were vital to their operations. However, this was a decision that was taken after careful deliberation about what was core to their business. A number of the other leading firms, who agreed that it was not essential to own technology in order to obtain necessary information, followed their example. In the current scenario, the goal is to obtain the maximum possible efficiency by correct utilization of the available options and partnerships. Thus, a company's choice to outsource a function would be taken based less on whether it is core to their business and more on who can provide the service with better efficiency.
The next generation models for service providers would be:IT Resourcing: The supplier provides specialist skills available from their talent pool to backfill the client's teams, relieving the pressure of staff shortages, IT projects or major roll-outs across a number of countries.
IT Co-sourcing: IT co-sourcing is a hybrid model integrating both in-house and outsourcing services. With this model, organisations eliminate overhead, optimise internal resources, and can quickly move products or services from development to production.
Ethical IT Outsourcing Services: Many organisations fail to realise is that without proper planning and consideration wholesale IT outsourcing can have far reaching implications, not just in HR scenarios, but also the sudden and immediate loss of business knowledge, etc. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way, there are a number of solutions that not only prepare and prevent loss of business knowledge, but can assist in retaining staff either on or off site. This approach is called ETHICAL OUTSOURCING.
IT Offshoring Services: Where organisations are in pursuit of the most efficient cost models, then the "high cost to low cost" model makes real sense. As the purest evolution of IT outsourcing, offshoring takes advantage of the low cost business model, whereby the more simple functions and queries can be resolved remotely by an offshore facility.
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