Outsourcing - Overview - Reasons For Outsourcing

Reasons For Outsourcing

Companies outsource to avoid certain types of costs. Among the reasons companies elect to outsource include avoidance of burdensome regulations, high taxes, high energy costs, and unreasonable costs that may be associated with defined benefits in labor union contracts and taxes for government mandated benefits. Perceived or actual gross margin in the short run incentivizes a company to outsource. With reduced short run costs, executive management sees the opportunity for short run profits while the income growth of the consumers base is strained. This motivates companies to outsource for lower labor costs. However, the company may or may not incur unexpected costs to train these overseas workers. Lower regulatory costs are an addition to companies saving money when outsourcing. On comparative costs, a U.S. employer typically incurs higher defined benefit costs associated with taxes to account for social security, Medicare, safety protection (OSHA regulations) and FICA taxes etc. than in other countries. On comparative CEO pay, executive pay in the United States in 2007 was more than 400 times more than average workers—a gap 20 times bigger than it was in 1965. In 2011, twenty-six of the largest US corporations paid more to CEO's than they paid in federal taxes. However, it appears companies do not outsource to reduce executive or managerial costs.

Companies may seek internal savings to focus money and resources towards core business. A company may outsource its landscaping functions irrelevant to the core business. Companies and public entities may outsource certain specialized functions, such as payroll, to ADP or Ceridian. Companies may find the same level of consumer satisfaction.

Import marketers may make short run profits from cheaper overseas labor and currency mainly in wealth consuming sectors at the long run expense of an economy's wealth producing sectors straining the home county's tax base, income growth, and increasing the debt burden. When companies offshore products and services, those jobs may leave the home country for foreign countries at the expense of the wealth producing sectors. Outsourcing may increase the risk of leakage and reduce confidentiality, as well as introduce additional privacy and security concerns.