An Introduction to outsourcing

In the recent times there have been lots of speculations and negative criticisms against Outsourcing to offshore destinations. But it has to be noted that outsourcing as a phenomena is not new but has been going on since ages. If one looks at the outsourcing history one can realize that since ancient time’s companies in developed countries have outsourced services to nearby less developed counties.

Before the IT revolution, many companies in the US outsourced manufacturing jobs to countries like Canada, Mexico and South America in order to cut costs. Many even set up separate workstations and factories in these regions. The only difference between then and now can be seen in the frantic pace at which things are happening. Also as manufacturing jobs involved solid goods they needed to be transported that gave rise to a different kind of employment opportunity. IT outsourcing does not involved any transportation from the manufacturing destination to the client's place. Apart from these differences outsourcing history seems to be quite an old thing.