Outsourcing: It's Not Just Dumb, It's Deadly

A disaster like this can ruin a company. Only time how well Reebok can survive the consumer backlash, lawsuit, and all the negative press. Is this actually a new Chinese plot, or simply a lack of intelligence in the marketing department at Reebok? Obviously the excitement from the "I can get 'em for 5 cent each!" marketing department has faded.

When is corporate America going to realize that, although there are a lot of fat, lazy American workers, most likely they'll still do a better job than someone in China, India, or some other non-English speaking country.

While the cost per unit savings in a manufacturing industry might be easy to monitor, I don't think the same holds true for technology jobs. It seems like outsourcing technology jobs is still a "good idea". A while back Dell claimed they were no longer outsourcing technical support to India. It appears as though it was only one company in India that lost their business. Turns out, only corporate customers get the benefit of no calls being handled in India.

I'm sure the metrics and financials for outsourcing technology jobs are complex, and it's probably very easy to look at the per hour wages being paid to employees and say that the company is saving money. A proper analysis would look at some of the other, softer factors such as customer satisfaction, productivity losses due to time zone and language barriers, etc.

I have many other thoughts on this subject but I'll simply provide the sage wisdom that only Scott Adams can provide in three simple frames. (checkout the follow up from 3/28).