Outsourcing - Benchmarked Companies

Outsourcing

Sun Microsystems, Sony Electronics and British Petroleum have all seen significant cost savings by outsourcing or offshoring (Stopper, 2005). Now, Global Com will soon join their ranks with the recent decision to relocate the Technical Call Centers to Ireland and India. While the Global Coms business case had shown a reduced unit cost of 40%, a recent University of Colorado at Denver study had shown that of 22 companies polled, 17 had cost savings of up to 60 % (Serapio, 2005).

The Telecommunications industry has been using offshore operations for a number of years now. This is not new or unique to Global Com. While this is a difficult decision for the Management at Global Com to make, the benefits will help Global Com improve profitability. Sony Electronics had decided in 2001 to do the same with their Human Resources administration. As Sony grew they needed to consolidate their HR to process to a single point of contact. Because their new system is web-based, employees and managers now have one location to go for all their HR needs. Global Com is not looking to outsource their HR, however by sending their Tech call centers offshore, they will have created a similar situation. The call centers will be "seamless" to the customer/consumer. Sony was able to streamline their inefficient HR processes and update their outdated technology infrastructure (Stopper, 2005). Global Com should have similar results with their new call centers. Newer facilities will have new infrastructure as a value added byproduct. One cannot argue that the process of outsourcing is not without sacrifice. However the benefit to the company, stakeholders and stockholders is too great to ignore. Using Sony Electronics example of outsourcing their Human Resources department has shown the positive influence that outsourcing can have on a company bottom line. There is no doubt that Global Com would not have similar