Doctoral Proposal: Exploring the Impact of Outsourcing on a Government Agency By CHARLES KIMANI
A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Doctorate.
Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership with a Specialization in Information Systems and Technology.
University of Dedan Kimathi School of Technology
September 2013
Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
…show more content…
However, the contracting of non-governmental workers allows agencies to adapt to the rapid changes in technology because many times contractors are certified and experienced knowledge workers and have the expertise to deploy the latest technical innovations (Chen and Soliman, 2002). For this reason the outsourcing of technical and complex tasks to contractors have become increasingly popular across both private and public organizations (Slaughter and Ang, 1996). Some of the emerging trends in outsourcing includes domestic verses offshore outsourcing. Domestic outsourcing is a perception of the local jobs in a country which is best for the local economy. It has rural outsourcing which makes rural parts carry out functions in a competitive basis rate as compared to other service providers from other countries. Offshore outsourcing is as a result of its spread to many countries and is brought forth by change in prices. Another trend is security issues whose major concern is the security questions on the sensitiveness of information that is accessed by outsiders of the firm. It has been a key concern and still remains as there have been reports of fraud and theft of assets which is a limiting factor to the growth of outsourcing locally and internationally.
In this chapter, the background of outsourcing within government agencies, the role that governmental leadership play in managing projects, and the DoD’s dependency on contract support to accomplish the mission
After analyzing all these risks and criteria Id like to present some points to demonstrate why we should go for outsourcing:
Because many businesses in the US have more often began outsourcing different business products instead of doing them in-house, it is important to understand why outsourcing may be the best option. Although many tie outsourcing to foreign markets, outsourcing can include both foreign and domestic markets. By entering into a contractual agreement, outsourcing allows organizations to pay for services they need. This gives the option for a business to get professionals to perform services for them that the business may not have the staff for. Outsourcing provides a cost saving-strategy that is usually more affordable. Ultimately,
In general, the outsourcing is hiring the foreign workers/company to do a particular task, as opposed to hiring domestic workers/company. Besides the outsourcing, the international purchase is an essential activity of companies. In the trend of a booming global economy, a company only focuses on its core value and hire suppliers to supply the necessary product and service. The relationship between companies are complicated and interdependent.
Why is contracting out so attractive to a public agency? Privatizing has its advantages that represent benefits to the agency.
It is a concept that has evolved from a manufacturing perspective to a strategic perspective, which views the concept as a way for organizations to focus and be more competitive. The basic premise of outsourcing is that a specialist organization can perform a particular service more efficiently than can internal operations because a specialist organization has an inherent advantage in producing and delivering a service. Superior technology, management skills, or economies of scale may contribute to this perception. The type of sourcing relationship depends on whether a long-term or short-term need exists. To save funds used for benefits for regular employees, temporary workers are hired. In this case, the organization (outsourcer) provides all necessary resources except the workers, who are provided by the vendor. For long-term services, the vendor has full responsibility for delivering the service; the outsourcer provides only a liaison.
Outsourcing has become an integral part of many organizations today. Outsourcing has its advantages and disadvantages that organizations will have to weigh to decide whether or not outsourcing is the best possible solution to their current problems and business operations. Outsourcing refers to the process of hiring external provider to operate on a business or organization function (Venture Outsource, 2012). In this case, two organizations or businesses enter a contract where there will be an exchange of services and payments. This paper will discuss the possible risks an organization may encounter in outsourcing in relation to the use of an external service
In today’s society, outsourcing has become a very critical and controversial issue to companies and other countries. Outsourcing is known as offshoring as an organization’s use of an outside organization for a broad set of services. As technology continues to grow and advance more, outsourcing becomes more popular. Many American white collar jobs are being taken over by foreign countries around the world. Almost every occupation or career in the United States has some effect of the outsourcing. As a result, many Americans become unemployed and financially challenged; being that outsourcing can increase the United States unemployment rate. Employees who live in the US rather keep jobs in the country to create more opportunities. On the other hand, few stakeholders
The state of Virginia/ Northrop Grumman outsourcing case demonstrated that outsourcing requires strong management of the vendor, clear lines of ownership, and review of performance metrics to ensure there are no breaches of contract (Lebeaux, 2009). The organization needs to ensure that they have an individual that can provide oversight and management for the outsourcing company, otherwise deadlines will be missed and performance will be
In 2004, Global Information Systems, Inc. began to put into motion the consideration of offshoring 3,000 jobs from here in the U.S to company locations in China, India and Brazil. These were highly compensated job positions. About half of GIS is separated into a division known as Global Services Divisions. A considerable portion of GSD’s business came from customers outsourcing their business process needs. GSD began to seek ways to cut costs and improve performance by “offshoring” certain activities in order to present the most attractive value proposition to potential customers.
The outsourcing market in Asia Pacific grew substantially in 2007. Although the number of contracts signed in 2007 grew by just over four per cent, their total contract value increased 30 per cent year over year from $9.9 billion to $12.8 billion and annualized revenues showed a 13 per cent increase, nearly double that of global average . The outsourcing performance in the Asia Pacific region is becoming stronger.
Once a clear set of instructions can be created for a job which allows quality to be easily and rigorously monitored, lower cost labor can be taught how to perform that job function. These lower cost options may include computer automation, robots, or low cost labor in foreign countries. This makes many forms of procedural based jobs good candidates for outsourcing. Specialization has allowed “personal outsourcing” in which a whole department is not outsourced, but just the specific tasks that could be classified as tedious or time-consuming and may provide a better benefit if the person who is meant to work on the task focuses on other higher-valued activities, while the outsourced contractor takes responsibility over the lower-value given task. This paves way for levels in efficiency and effectiveness because though it might be more cost efficient to keep just the one employee, but it might not be effective if the employee cannot meet posted deadlines due to the time needed to complete
In analyzing the second reason listed for why outsourcing is used; ‘inability to attract the highest caliber of employees to job functions that may be peripheral to the organization’s core discipline’, companies employ a different kind of outsourcing tactic. This reason leads to offshore outsourcing solutions. If a company cannot attract high caliber domestic employees to job functions secondary to their main function then they seek help where labor may be less expensive and more efficient.
“Outsourcing refers to the contracting or subcontracting of noncore activities to free up cash, personnel, time, and facilities for activities in which a company holds competitive advantage”(Barlow, 2012). Outsourcing contributes speed to the operations within a business, gives a business the freedom of choosing the best possible supplier applicable to their business and also requires less of an effort from the management sector. The majority of businesses outsource in order to get jobs done quicker and more efficiently [comma] which is solved by hiring a specialist instead of giving your particular business the training and skills necessary to tackle the job at hand. For example, Apple outsources thousands of manufacturing jobs to countries like China, Korea in order to save time and money.
In the past decade the topic of outsourcing has become a heavily debated subject on if it is ethically correct to outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. Outsourcing has become more and more an option for many companies and not just an economic fad. The decision to outsource is a difficult one for any company to make because there are many advantages and disadvantages to consider. The decision to outsource affects many people, communities, and industries so if a corporation decides to outsource they must consider how it will affect human dignity, the common good of the economy, and subsidiary.
Executive management is increasingly recognizing that sometimes the disadvantages of outsourcing outweigh the advantages, even after an agreement has been signed. Many companies are canceling their outsourcing agreements, or deciding to hire their own staff to provide in-house services once again.7