Why outsourcing makes you fail and smell of wee

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Tell that to the workers at the factory in the next city that just closed down in favour of a new plant in Poland which employs three times as many workers at about the same cost.

Tell that to Mercedes-Benz and VW who've discovered that cheaper outsourced labour often results in nose-diving quality.

[Sir Og]

I work for a company that manufactures products outsourced from England, Spain, France, Austria and Germany.
And I can assure you that if the outsoucing company knows what they are doing there are no issues whatsoever (including quality) and everybody is happy.
Out of all the companies that we are working with we have the biggest problems with our English partners.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by C0ckney
outsourcing things like call centres where the people you outsource to are going to have to deal directly with customers, isn't a great idea.

however outsourcing your widget production to mr wang's widget factory will give you cheaper widgets, without making customers angry.

Accounting is another area where foreign outsourcing will work. Outsourcing customer service doesn't work well because people want to understand the person on the other line and want to feel they understand where they're coming from (I.E. believe they have similar cultural understandings). It will work great for production and behind the scenes type things but anything the customer has face to face contact with should be local.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp

Tell that to Mercedes-Benz and VW who've discovered that cheaper outsourced labour often results in nose-diving quality.

German companies found that outsourcing to the US raised quality compared to German factories. German labor unions were pissed about that since they cost so much more. China is still far behind and so auto parts from there will still be crap but Koreans are quickly catching up and Japanese often sit well on the cost to quality scale.

[Sikander]

I've actually had better experiences with customer service operations in India than in the U.S. This probably changes as the labor market changes, but when unemployment is low in the U.S. those call center employee jobs often go to foreigners anyway. At least in India they are higher quality people (more intelligent and often better educated).

[rah]

Having participated in the analysis of customer satisfaction survey results for companies that use internal and out-sourced call centers, the comparison in perceived quality is always obvious. Out-sourced was much lower in every comparison that I've seen.

[Theben]

What about actual quality? Any noticeable differences there?

[DinoDoc]

From the perspective of the consumer is there a difference?

[Spiffor]

When I worked in a German call center (I was supposed to answer the phone for French customers, but given the amount of calls from Germany, I was assigned to the Germans as well), a great many people asked me where they were phoning to.

As I was in Stuttgart, and normally a member of the "international service", they were mostly happy with the reply. But if I had answered that they were in Prague, I bet many would have been furious.

The job was outsourced btw. Deautsche Telekom couldn't set up a call center on its own, and had to contract with an independant one A few customers could have been unhappy with that.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Oerdin


German companies found that outsourcing to the US raised quality compared to German factories.

You're kidding. Small tribes of nomadic herders could live and tend their livestock in the gaps between the panels on US built Mercs.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


Tell that to Mercedes-Benz and VW who've discovered that cheaper outsourced labour often results in nose-diving quality.

I doubt unqualified Polish bums work much worse than unqualified Swedish bums. And it's not like quality was a big selling point in the first place.

[SpencerH]

The only company I've dealt with that I know is outsourced is Dell. I've had good service but I can easily understand indian dialects. OTOH, I know that my wife (who's swedish) would not say the same thing.

Personally, I'd like to see customer service at charter cable outsourced. At least then I'd get an answer from a human.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Accounting is another area where foreign outsourcing will work.

Maybe doing tax returns or payroll (provided the foreign company has skilled workers), but I'd like to see a foreign outsourced company perform an internal audit.

[duke o' york]

Payroll is traditionally outsourced in tonnes of smaller companies, but I agree with you on internal audit. Hell, even basic bookkeeping would be bloody hard miles away from where things are actually going on.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by duke o' york
Payroll is traditionally outsourced in tonnes of smaller companies, but I agree with you on internal audit. Hell, even basic bookkeeping would be bloody hard miles away from where things are actually going on.

Traditionally not to foreign companies though.

It makes sense to do contract out for smaller companies that don't have an accounting function beyond a basic sales ledger, purchase ledger. But by the very nature of being a small company they will not want to outsource to a foreign company. Too much risk is involved. Also if the function is botched at all then the employees aren't going to be happy at not being paid properly - then you have to contact the foreign country to resolve the issue....

Anything that requires more than pure data and regular/recurrent action is going to have difficulties with foreign outsourcing I would have thought. As you say, you certainly can't keep a book of prime entry (electronic package or otherwise) if you can't even look at the physical invoices.