RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Outsourcing: Challenges and Opportunities

Executive Summary

Many businesses have over the last several decades sought to outsource some of their noncore activities to third parties in an attempt to improve efficiency by focusing on the activities they deem core. In recent times, however, there has been a trend among businesses especially multinationals to outsource core functions such as manufacturing. Although outsourcing has been associated with some benefits, there is evidence that it could have some unintended and negative effects on businesses. The research will expound on the challenges and opportunities of outsourcing. The research will survey 25 sampled restaurants and determine whether the effects of outsourcing are adverse or not. From a general perspective, firms that do embrace outsourcing appear to be more profitable than those that do not. The implication, therefore, is that outsourcing does have a positive impact on the profitability of an enterprise.

Introduction

Various companies and institutions have embraced outsourcing over the last few decades. It should, however, be noted that despite its present popularity, outsourcing happens to be a rather recent concept. As a matter of fact, the concept happens to be less than 7 decades old having only emerged in the 1950s. Businesses, however, started to identify with the concept of outsourcing as a sound strategy in the 1980s. Today the concept happens to be a standard in the conduct of global business. At present, companies operating in the U.S. and seeking to benefit from lower labor costs in countries such as China have pursued offshore outsourcing. The various approaches to outsourcing often embraced by enterprises are inclusive of, but they are not limited to; operational outsourcing, process outsourcing, project outsourcing, professional outsourcing, etc. An example of outsourcing would be whereby a company hires a marketing team externally from an enterprise that has ventured and specialized in marketing and related services (i.e. a third-party provider). In this case, the outsourcing company avoids creating and managing a marketing department on its own. The purpose of this research is to determine whether outsourcing has an impact on an enterprises bottom-line. The first section of this proposal will focus on the problem statement. The problem statement entails the researchable scenario of our research. The second section of this proposal will focus on the literature review. The literature review is essential since it will enable us to determine what others have found out about the experiences of various enterprises with outsourcing. The research will focus on restaurants that have for over a period of more than 10 years contracted external companies to market and advertise on their behalf rather than partake in the same by themselves, i.e. via the creation of a marketing and promotions department. In so doing, a determination will be made as to whether outsourcing does impact performance...

Further, businesses are interested in determining whether it would make business sense for them to outsource some functions (both core and noncore functions). We hypothesize that outsourcings lead to increased profitability for a company or firm.

Literature Review

In basic terms, outsourcing has got to do with the move by an enterprise to contract out some of its functions (Agbury, Anza, and Iyortsuum, 2017). This is the very same definition that Iqbal and Dad (2013) assign to outsourcing. Some, like Ishizaka, Bhattacharya, Gunasekaran, Dekkers and Pareira (2019), however, feel that in todays business context, such a simplistic definition of outsourcing fails...

…all the research-related information, can voluntarily provide their willingness to participate in research (p. 117). Thus, it is also important to note that purpose of the study will be clearly explained to respondents. Another ethical consideration considered on this front is privacy and confidentiality. The respondents' privacy is paramount, and the information shared should not be shared with a third party. Integrity is also of great relevance in this case. For this reason, deliberate efforts ought to be taken to ensure that the research results are not, in any way or manner, influence by external parties/forces. Further, the persons conducting the investigation should not have any conflict of interest.

Implication and Considerations

One implication that can be drawn from the study is that size is a key consideration when an enterprise is considering outsourcing its roles. Generally, in comparison to smaller firms, larger firms tend to outsource some of their roles in pursuit of efficiency. Another implication of the study is that outsourcing has a positive impact on the bottom line/revenues. Businesses that outsource their functions tend to have higher profits than those that elect not to outsource. Hence, this could lead to the conclusion that outsourcing improves the performance of a businss. Performance could in this case be measured in terms of increased profitability.

One limitation of the study is that the research is focused on one city. Hence the perspectives sourced on this front could be constrained because the area could be having the very same set of variables affecting businesses. Also, the opinions of the respondents may not necessarily be representative of the actual situation on the ground. Another limitation that can result from the study relates to the possibility of false information being supplied by respondents. This is more so the case given that some of the info sought is…