The Real Heroes of Outsourcing

If you’ve never worked in outsourcing, take it from me – outsourcing is hard work.

It doesn’t matter if you work for the buyer or seller, or a supplier of parts or services - outsourcing is hard work. And in my humble opinion the people who make their living doing the work of outsourcing are some of the most dedicated yet least appreciated people in the electronics industry.

Why underappreciated?

Perhaps it’s because the people who practice the craft of outsourcing have never shared with their co-workers just how complicated and problematic the process they manage can be – probably because they were too busy trying to expedite product deliveries while simultaneously mitigating excess materials from the third product forecast change of the month. A forecast they already know will be obsolete before they show up for work tomorrow morning. Yet they push forward.

Or maybe it’s because we’ve become an industry of Product Development and Marketing elitists. Ever hear a CEO telling a securities analyst how they were going to build the next great commercial enterprise by never actually building the products they sell – I have.

Guess what… the CEO’s dream is only possible because there are hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of very hard working people out there building the products that the CEO thinks they’ll never touch. People both inside and outside the enterprise with the chutzpa to do the heavy lifting and fight the endless battles, people whose experience is measured by scars not patina, people who make it happen – everyday – not because someone tells them how much they’re appreciated but in spite of the fact that they’re ignored.

So if you’re in the craft and making it all work – thank you and rock-on!

Posted by Bill Roberts, December 9th, 2006

Filed to Logistics, Outsourcing, Supply chain management
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3 Responses to “The Real Heroes of Outsourcing”

  1. From: Randy Littleson
      on December 11th, 2006

    I was with an executive at a contract manufacturer once who was sharing stories consistent with your statements. This person had previously worked for several OEMs and commented that “it’s amazing how much people forget about what it’s like to manufacture things once they’ve outsourced.”

    We see this frequently - once you outsource, the expectations increase beyond what you did when you manufactured internally.

    So, to your point, not only is it hard, but the expectations are even higher in an outsourced environment.

  2. From: Eason
      on December 16th, 2006

    that’s true, especially for east asian contract maufacturers, they are the true heroes.

  3. From: martin hogan
      on December 19th, 2006

    Surely it is not that there are heroes but rather that there are a bunch of people in charge who do not understand the processes over which they have charge?

    I have worked in CEMs and virtual companies and cannot name one where the senior management, let alone the design teams, began to grasp the complexity of work off site.

    It is pretty simple - work was outsourced because a company didn’t know how to do it efficiently, so they moved the problem without bothering to understand what the problem was. Ever wondered why there are so many consultants stating the blindingly obvious? Maybe CEOs should listen to their underpaid ‘heroes’.

    regards

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