Outsourcing Among the list of controversial issues relating to jobs and the economy in the United States, outsourcing is right up there near the top. Politicians frequently attack each other using the phrase, "sending our jobs overseas…" and many a politician has been stung by this accusation. Thesis: While there are clearly benefits to be realized by companies that engage in outsourcing, there are also difficulties, drawbacks, and unanticipated expenses associated with outsourcing. Outsourcer, beware, should be the motto going into to any outsourcing arrangement.

IBM Takes Over Outsourcing for Auto Parts Maker Visteon

Outsourcing in many instances is a profitable alternative for technology companies. It would appear that taking on outsourcing contracts can be more lucrative than manufacturing technology components. Indeed, IBM's outsourcing projects have meant billions of dollars in profits while the company transitions from manufacturing and selling its computer technologies to providing services instead. In the early 2000s, IBM began moving away from manufacturing software and hardware for computers -- disk drives, displays, and monitors -- and began moving into the business of selling "sophisticated packages of services to software clients," according to John Hechinger writing in The Wall Street Journal (Hechinger, 2003, p. B.3).

In 2003, IBM entered a deal with Visteon to handle its data centers and help desks; Visteon was spun off from its parent Ford Motor Company, in 2000, and has a goal of moving away from operational links to Ford, Hechinger explains. Moreover, in 2002-2003, IBM won "…a number of multi-billion dollar outsourcing contracts, including one with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.," which had a value of about $5 billion, Hechinger explains. Typically a corporation like IBM finds outsourcing an "attractive" venture because outsourcing "…frees them from making huge investments for information technology that they may not need in the future" (Hechinger, B.3).

In 2002 IBM's revenue from service-related contracts was listed as $36.4 billion, which Hechinger reports amounted to 45% of IBM's "total sales" (B.3). And as a clear signal of its intention to phase out its manufacturing component, IBM "terminated" it $16 billion deal with Dell -- which included the sale of IBM parts, monitors, displays, and disk drives -- that had originally been set to provide Dell with those computer parts of a seven-year span of time.

Outsourcing: Pros and Cons

Noted economics professor Murray Weidenbaum -- founder of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy -- explains to readers that overseas outsourcing is "…far more complicated than is generally understood" (Weidenbaum, 2005, p. 311). The unexpected costs and complications -- on top of the controversial nature of outsourcing in terms of jobs lost to the American economy -- make it vital for businesses to become fully appraised of every aspect of outsourcing prior to launching into it.

Weidenbaum offers a quick sketch of how outsourcing began, beginning that section of his article by explaining that "…the age of economic isolationism has long since passed" (311). As proof of his assertion, Weidenbaum explains that about 60% of the revenue related to American information technology (IT) companies "originates overseas" (311). Outsourcing began, Weidenbaum explains, when some domestic businesses hired "specialized workers overseas" to react to the federal limits on immigration into the United States. When those businesses did not succeed in bringing those foreign workers into the U.S., "…the need to send the work to them became real" (Weidenbaum, 312).

This process gave the American business the chance to learn how to use the newest technologies to "shift the location of work economically," and in the meantime American corporations clearly saw the lowered costs, both in the foreign country where the work was taking place and in the domestic positions. And while the outsourcing to foreigners was something of an innovation, outsourcing itself wasn't a new idea because "most businesses subcontract out most of the activities to other companies, mainly domestic," Weidenbaum continues (312). The outsourcing to businesses within the U.S. is all part of the trend to "decentralize business operations," Weidenbaum explains, and now that outsourcing has gone overseas in a big way, it allows American companies the chance to provide "round-the-clock" support that might be too expensive in the U.S. (312).

There are inherent dangers and drawbacks in the...

For example, when a foreign vendor hired by IBM, runs into financial problems, or is acquired by another firm, IBM could find itself in trouble, left without support until a new outsourcing arrangement can be firmed up (312-313). Also, foreign companies -- in India, for example -- tend to lose up to 20% of their workforce annually, and that poses a threat for the American corporation expecting full cooperation and uninterrupted service.
Other limits and dangers vis-a-vis outsourcing -- that students pursuing business degrees are not always privy to -- situations include: a) electricity overseas may not be as reliable as in the U.S. And "blackouts" can cause embarrassing gaps in service for American corporations; b) some U.S. companies pay more for the real estate facilities they require overseas than they would in the U.S.; and moreover, the cost of upgrading "poor infrastructure overseas" can result in considerable dollars spent, and indeed can wipe out potential profits; c) there is always the fear that a company's "core technologies" could be stolen by vendors overseas -- where there is less respect for intellectual property rights -- so some American companies limit outsourcing to "engineering and maintenance tasks"; d) the legal systems in some overseas environments can be "arcane," leading to tax and regulatory snags; e) the possibility of encountering "corrupt officials" in the public sector overseas is very real; and f) overseas managers are not always competent and fully informed when it comes to the American business environment; they do not always relate well to American "…customers, lingo, traditions, and high-quality control" (Weidenbaum, 313).

In fact, so many Americans reaching a call center for Dell computers were so put off by the strange accents they got from employees in India, and so many complaints flowed into the customer service lines at Dell, that the company moved its support services back to the U.S. (Weidenbaum, 313). On the subject of the negative impact to the American economy regarding of outsourcing jobs -- a subject that will find its way into the political dialogue in this year of a presidential election -- Weidenbaum concludes with a reminder that proposing laws against outsourcing American jobs is absurd. That's because foreign companies will retaliate.

"The United States is both the world's largest exporter" of jobs but is also "the world's largest importer" of jobs (thousands of companies overseas outsource their jobs to the U.S.; hence, Weidenbaum writes, it behooves America to keep markets open at home and overseas (314).

The Politics and Economics of Offshore Outsourcing

Writing in the Journal of Monetary Economics, authors Mankiw and Swagel present the case that notwithstanding the political posturing against outsourcing, the "empirical evidence" suggests that increased employment in the overseas affiliates of American multinational corporations can translate into "more employment in the U.S. parent rather than less" (Mankiw, et al., 2006, p. 1027). The two authors -- who were both working for the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) during the presidential campaign of 2004, Mankiw as chairman, Swagel as chief of staff -- point to the release of the "Economic Report of the President" (ERP) in February, 2004, as one of the sparks that created a big outsourcing controversy (1028).

In each of the previous two years leading up to the presidential election of 2004, there were "…fewer than 300 references" to outsourcing in the four major U.S. newspapers; but in 2004, partly due to the "tepid labor market recovery following the economic slowdown of 2000 and 2001" and partly due to the release of the ERP, there were "over 1,000 references" to outsourcing, Mankiw explains (1028). Senator John Kerry, running against George W. Bush for the presidency, spend time "…lambasting President Bush and his advisors for supposedly favoring" the movement of jobs overseas; Kerry supported the idea of a corporate tax proposal that would be aimed at "…removing tax incentives for U.S. firms to move jobs overseas" (Mankiw, 1028).

This is part of the story of outsourcing that doesn't always receive the objective attention it may deserve. It is worthy of examination in this paper, in the sense of providing perspective that perhaps isn't apparent in textbooks. First of all, politicians always promise they will create jobs (if elected), and when a candidate for the presidency like Kerry senses that he can make voter inroads by attacking the sitting president (Bush) for advocating that more American jobs might be sent overseas, he jumps on that line of attack. This creates a theme for voters that are keen on keeping jobs here in the U.S. -- a theme that can play into the hands of a candidate like Democrat Kerry. Although he eventually lost a close election contest to Bush in November, 2004, Kerry plus other Democrats did make some serious political hay by quoting the last sentence of the chapter on international trade in the 2004…