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Monday, March 06, 2006

United Press International - NewsTrack - Many companies plan more outsourcing

United Press International - NewsTrack - Many companies plan more outsourcing:

BOSTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Eighty-nine percent of U.S., British and Asian corporate technology decision makers plan to increase their outsourcing budget over the next 12 months.
[...]
Okay then, but what about this from CNN Money:
Outsourcing customer service may seem like a bargain, but it can cost you some of your most valuable clients.

Which is why the backlash against customer-service outsourcing is upon us, and why it's gathering steam. Sure, outsourcing offers short-term cost savings. But contracting out critical functions can never deliver sustainable competitive advantage, because competitors can always hire the same contractors to do the same thing (equally poorly). Real competitive advantage stems from strategies that aren't easily imitated--and, sorry, buying services on the open market isn't one of them.
Piss me off just once, and I'll be gone. There are too many other companies out there who do give a shit, for me to put up with lousy service.

3 comments:

Jean said...

customer service out-sourcing is different from out-sourcing the manufacturing of U.S. products....
I have been in manufacturing for over 22 yrs.......having other countries produce our products has reduced our production level from three full shifts...about 250 employees......to one small shift of about 50 employees...all in 4 yrs..... The customer service bull-shit, however, is non-tangible.....and since almost all big companies use it, we will all be tolerating the broken-English red-dots who can't understand us either...and end up with customer situations unsolved.....and frustration levels at the stroke level!

Anonymous said...

Queue pasta -- yo no problemo. Si, que trevajo por no qie... oh fuck it -- I can't speak what-erver-anian!

Regards,

Al Gore

curmudgeon said...

jean,
You're absoloutely right. One can't expect a manufacturing company to make every single piece of a product.
A Pez dispenser needs a steel spring, plastic case and duh - candy. Is Pez going to run a steel mill, a coal mine, a petroleum plant, oil rigs, cane fields, ... No. They'll outsource the parts. But if my Pez dispenser breaks, I don't wan't Habib trying to talk to me about returning my Pez dispenser, after he just got done with a call from a pissed off DVD player owner.

al gore,
You should have made a better internet translator.