You are here

The Growth of Outsourcing and Offshoring

19 January, 2016 - 17:13

Beginning in the 1990s, companies began to outsource a lot of other activities besides transportation. 1Their goal was twofold: (1) to lower their costs and (2) to focus on the activities they do best. You might be surprised by the functions firms outsource. In fact, many “producers” of products no longer produce them at all but outsource their production instead.

Most clothing companies, including Nike, design products, but they don’t make them. Instead, they send their designs to companies in nations with low labor costs. Likewise, many drug companies no longer develop their own drugs. They outsource the task to smaller drug developers, which in recent years have had a better track record of developing best-selling pharmaceuticals. The Crest SpinBrush (toothbrush) wasn’t developed by Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crest. A small company called Church & Dwight Co. developed the technology for the SpinBrush, and P&G purchased the right to market and sell the product.

Outsourcing work to companies abroad is called offshoring. Figure 9.1 Percentage of Supply Chain Functions Offshored in 2008 shows the percentage of supply chain functions three hundred global manufacturers and service organizations say they now offshore and the percentages these organizations expect to offshore by 2010.

Figure 9.1 Percentage of Supply Chain Functions Offshored in 2008
Adapted from PRTM Management Consultants, “Global Supply Chain Trends 2008–2010,”(accessed December 2, 2009).