Outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is subcontracting a service, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision whether to outsource or to do in house is often based upon achieving a lower production cost, making better use of available resources, focusing energy on the core competencies of a particular business, or just making more efficient use of labour, capital, information technology or land resources. It is essentially a division of labour. Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980’s.
Research and Development
The competitive pressures on firms to bring out new products at an ever rapid pace to meet market needs are increasing. As such, the pressures on the R&D department are increasing. In order to alleviate the pressure, firms have to either increase R&D budgets or find ways to utilize the resources in a more productive way. There are situations when a firm may consider outsourcing some of its R&D work to a contract research organizations or universities. Reasons why a firm could consider outsourcing are:
• new product design does not work
• project time and cost overruns
• loss of key staff
• competitive response
• problems of quality/yield.
The key drivers for R&D outsourcing are emerging mass markets and availability of expertise in the field. In this context, the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, provide huge pools from which to find talent. Both countries produce over 200,000 engineers and science graduates each year. Moreover both countries are low cost sourcing countries. Other strategic drivers for outsourcing R&D are access to expertise and intellectual property, filling gaps in the capabilities of the R&D function, managing risk better, reducing the time to market, and focusing on the core competence or activities of the firm
Manufacturing
Often companies will develop and market products but leave the manufacturing to other companies that specialize in it. Thus a
Outsourcing is subcontracting a service, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision whether to outsource or to do in house is often based upon achieving a lower production cost, making better use of available resources, focusing energy on the core competencies of a particular business, or just making more efficient use of labour, capital, information technology or land resources. It is essentially a division of labour. Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980’s.
Research and Development
The competitive pressures on firms to bring out new products at an ever rapid pace to meet market needs are increasing. As such, the pressures on the R&D department are increasing. In order to alleviate the pressure, firms have to either increase R&D budgets or find ways to utilize the resources in a more productive way. There are situations when a firm may consider outsourcing some of its R&D work to a contract research organizations or universities. Reasons why a firm could consider outsourcing are:
• new product design does not work
• project time and cost overruns
• loss of key staff
• competitive response
• problems of quality/yield.
The key drivers for R&D outsourcing are emerging mass markets and availability of expertise in the field. In this context, the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, provide huge pools from which to find talent. Both countries produce over 200,000 engineers and science graduates each year. Moreover both countries are low cost sourcing countries. Other strategic drivers for outsourcing R&D are access to expertise and intellectual property, filling gaps in the capabilities of the R&D function, managing risk better, reducing the time to market, and focusing on the core competence or activities of the firm
Manufacturing
Often companies will develop and market products but leave the manufacturing to other companies that specialize in it. Thus a