Strategic Outsource Decisions Manufacturers -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Questions: Is Strategic Outsourcing The Most Widely Used And Trusted Level Of Outsourcing Practices? What Are The Various Negatives Of The Strategic Outsourcing? What Practices Are Used By Organizations To Have A Greater Control Over The Outsourced Work? Does Outsourcing Lead To Loss Of Quality In The Final Product Or Service? Answers: Introduction Outsourcing in the general sense refers to the transfer of certain processes, which were previously taken care of by the company internally, to the organizations in a distant land so that the process becomes cheaper and faster (Dolgui Proth, 2013). However, it is sharing of work but outsourcing is a lot different from subcontracting or joint manufacturing (Guers, Martin Wybo, 2014). The primary motive that drives organizations to move towards outsourcing is the benefit of cost reduction that is huge and reduces the annual expenses subsequently for the company. The benefits are in plenty but such a process is not without its drawbacks. The aim of this research proposal is to focus on the areas that prove to be advantageous to the company and the areas that auditing threat to the company when strategic outsourcing is used in practice. The proposed research method will lead to collection of both primary and secondary data that will be taken into account to understand the various impli cations that outsourcing can have both positive as well as negative in its nature. Project Objectives The objective of this research proposal is to gain an insight into the benefits and drawbacks that are posed by outsourcing. The research proposal will look at the various possible results both positive and negative that can incur with the practice of strategic outsourcing. The issue of quality, company image, cost effectiveness and also the amount of failure in outsourcing process, all will be taken into account to understand the process of outsourcing in totality. The various levels of outsourcing will be evaluated to find out the effectiveness of strategic outsourcing practice over the other prevalent practices. Project Scope The research proposal will look at the literature review of the process of outsourcing and try to get hold of the various factors that are associated with it. The literature review will help in establishing the research question and hypothesis (Machi McEvoy, 2016). The various pros and cons will allow designing the research that will be conducted in the future in order to understand the various merit and demerits of strategic outsourcing and the level of acceptance it has attained among the various organizations. Literature review The focus of this section is to provide a brief of the literature of the topic and finding out the possible gaps in the literature (Gallouj Zanfei, 2013). Nowadays, outsourcing has been a practice that is used by every company to get their work done by other organizations present in away locations. The features of outsourcing have many advantages and disadvantages that are brought to focus by previous researches that were done on the same topic. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing are- Outsourcing effectively brings down the cost of operation for a company. Organizations outsource their secondary work processes to places where the cost of resource is low. Developed countries outsource the work to developing countries because the cost of labor is low in those parts of the world (Anwar, 2013). Companies like IBM have successfully done this and passed on their secondary works to countries like India and this has led to the reduction in the costs and the company has went to top position in the current market. Experts do the work when it is outsourced because outsourcing firms hire experts to deal with the work that pours in. The cost of developing expertise in the needed labor force is way higher and hence outsourcing the work to expert results in better quality of work being done for the company (Schwarz, 2014). Outsourcing enhances the effectiveness of the work force because the non-core activities are outsourced and the primary workforce can focus entirely on the core activities of the company (Schniederjans, Schniederjans Schniederjans, 2015). This leads to better quality in the services of the company. The control over the outsourcing firms is much stipulated and hence it cannot be assured that always the organization will work according to the terms of the organization that is outsourcing its work. The management has no control and hence it leads to the reduction in the quality of work because there is no such quality check before the work is passed on in the final stage (Goetsch Davis, 2014). This a huge disadvantage and it leads to the damage of the companys reputation in the market due to the supply of poor quality products, which are partly due to the outsourced material or service. Employment levels take a hit when the work is outsourced in bulks. The unemployed population may be capable of doing the work but they are not given any opportunity to work and are hence left unemployed because all such work are already outsourced due to the low cost in other countries (Bandyopadhyay, Marjit Yang, 2014). This is a prime scenario in countries like Australia. The literature gap lies in understanding that apart from the various advantages and disadvantages that are present in the process, it a factor to decide that which level of outsourcing should be selected by the company in order to gain the most benefit from it. The various levels of outsourcing are- Tactical Outsourcing- This level of outsourcing depends mainly on making the decision based on the factor of cost. Lack of monetary resources, lead the companies to selecting this level of outsourcing. Strategic outsourcing brings about obvious benefits as improved money reserve funds, limiting the requirement for future ventures and settling staffing issues (Hodari, Waldthausen Sturman, 2014). Large organizations undertake such outsourcing techniques for their HR administration, payroll activities or logistics. Strategic Outsourcing- This is the most effective level of outsourcing and all the successful operations turn to this for optimizing their performance in the market. In this level, the company aligns the focus of the workers according to the primary motives of the company (Xiao, Xia Zhang, 2014). This leads to long-term value returns for the company and allows the best services to represent the company. Transformational Outsourcing- This gives the business a new definition and enables the company to create sustainable advantage over its competitors and gain higher profit to maintain the peak position in the market (Lacity Willcocks, 2013). These levels are all inclusive of various risks that may result to loss for the company but still most of the companies prefer the first two levels despite knowing the risks because they ensure long-term benefit and direct cost reduction in the process. While outsourcing any work, it always should be noted that the place to which the work is being outsourced should have all the resources that will result to benefit of the organization. If the resource base is inadequate then it will be ineffective in producing good quality of work in the days to come and the company shall eventually face a loss by outsourcing the work. Research Design and Methodology Data will be collected from small sample groups belonging to two different organizations, which use two different levels of outsourcing. According to Neuman (2013), qualitative data is collected in small sets by conducting interviews. The interview for this research will be conducted among the top managers of two different organizations and the answers are expected to reflect the quality that is prevalent in the work scenario. Quantitative research In this method, numerical data will be collected from the organizations archived database about the profit and loss that has been incurred due to outsourcing (Neuman, 2013). The employee survey will be conducted to find out their satisfaction and the overall work environment in the two different organizations that use two different levels of outsourcing out of which one should use Strategic outsourcing. Both the methods will be used to get a conclusion on the research questions that are proposed in this research proposal. Research limitation The sample size and variety will be small because only two companies will be taken for conducting the research. Less number of people is in the managerial posts and hence the sample size for certain interviews will be too small to get a larger picture (Neuman, 2013). The data that will be taken into account for the analysis from the database of the organization may be biased and manipulated in order to project a better image of the company to the public. The respondents who belong to the managerial rank will provide bias response when they will be asked about the employee satisfaction and company growth in the recent years because negative feedback from them will put light on their inability to run the company successfully. The budget of the research is very limited and hence that will restrict the number of companies that will be surveyed. The low budget will restrict travelling to other destinations to get the data for better understanding of the situation in respect to outsourcing practices around the globe. Time Schedule The first month of the schedule will go into finalizing the topic for the research and the subsequent months will go in gathering the data from various sources. From the 3rd month onwards, the literature review shall be conducted to get a better idea about the grounds that are to be covered in the research. The final stages will include analyzing the project and concluding it along with making a rough draft to be submitted. All this will be done roughly in a period of 6-7 months. Conclusion To conclude, the practice of outsourcing can lead to various outcomes which can have all sort of implications to an organizations progress. The research is expected to conclude in favor of the practices of strategic outsourcing but there are many section that will arise as the data is analyzed after being collected from the relevant sources. Outsourcing is a major practice that is present in all organizations in some form or the other. The various processes are being outsourced to enable a faster rate of work and increase the performance of the workers by making them focus on issues that are core in their nature. The outsourcing has led to many failures too and the entire conclusion can be drawn once the research is completed and a wider answer is provided to the proposed research question. 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