Outsourcing Business communication

Outsourcing: Pros and cons

The Apple Corporation has long proved to be one of the more resistant of the tech giants to outsourcing its critical functions. An important selling point of the Apple brand has been its superior customer service and hands-on personal attention. This has caused Apple to eschew call centers. Its R&D is closely guarded under famously top-level security. Apple is able to charge a premium price for its products because of the high quality of its tech support, in contrast to its rivals. In 2006, Apple Computer Inc. decided not to build a technical support center in Bangalore, despite anticipated cost savings. "There was talk of the company hiring 3,000 workers by 2007 to handle support for Macintosh computers and other Apple gear... Apple never intended to outsource high-end software development to its Bangalore shop: Unlike most tech companies, Apple does almost all of its R&D and product development near its Cupertino (Calif.) headquarters" (India: Why Apple Walked Away, 2006, Business Week).

Apple closely controls all aspect of the company's output....

It was considered 'big news' when Apple began to outsource some of its hardware in 1998, when demand for iMacs became too great for it to sustain with its U.S. operations (Davis & Kanellos 1998). Apple continues to outsource the physical production of its computers to China and other nations in the developing world, but retains careful oversight over its technical support, marketing, and advertising, which means keeping these components based in the U.S. Even call centers not located in the U.S. (such as in Europe) tend to serve the nations where they are based.
The Apple Corporation is a good example of the judicious use of outsourcing. Outsourcing is not a black and white issue -- it is a continuum. Advocates of outsourcing see the policies pursued by the Apple Corporation as a kind of win-win scenario. The 'best' or higher-level jobs remain within the United States, while lower-level manufacturing jobs that pay salaries lower than American workers are currently willing to work at are exported overseas. "Workers in developing nations will get new and higher-paying jobs, and consumers in the U.S. will be able to buy products that are…