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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Aren't most of those workers actually employees of other companies that supply the labor? Or is this really for the distribution center managers?
Of course, it just won't work when it comes to warehouse operations. But if it did work, offshoring still might be "the very last thing they want" because workers outside the US often have more rights and protections.
Here's what's going on offshore this week:
Amazon workers in Germany strike |
No, Amazon warehouses don't all rely on sub-contractors. It depends on the business climate. Hostile markets they use contractors, business-friendly ones get Amazon contracts and long term commitments. Common practice.
And, no, the german operation is not off-shoring since it supports the region it is located in. Relying on "Brian from Bangalore" to provide user support for New Jersey is offshoring. Shipping products from a German warehouse to Sweden isn't because the entire EU is effectively a single market/service region.
Neither would be closing their German warehouses and serving that market form Poland or Switzerland since those are part of the same service region.
From Wikipedia:
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Offshoring is defined as the movement of a business process done at a company in one country to the same or another company in another, different country. Almost always work is moved because of a lower cost of operations in the new location. More recently, offshoring drivers also include access to qualified personnel abroad, in particular in technical professions, and increasing speed to market.[2] Offshoring is sometimes contrasted with outsourcing or offshore outsourcing. Outsourcing is the movement of internal business processes to an external organizational unit. Outsourcing refers to the process by which an organization gives part of its work to another firm / organization and makes it responsible for most of the applications as well as the design of the enterprise business process. This process is done under restrictions and strategies in order to establish consistency with the offshore outsourcing organizations. Many companies nowadays outsource various professional areas in the company such as e-mail services, payroll and call center. These jobs are being handled by other organizations that specialize in each sector allowing the off-shoring company to focus more on other business concerns . However, subcontracting in the same country would be outsourcing, but not offshoring. A company moving an internal business unit from one country to another would be offshoring or physical restructuring, but not outsourcing. A company subcontracting a business unit to a different company in another country would be both outsourcing and offshoring.
Related terms include nearshoring, which implies relocation of business processes to (typically) lower cost foreign locations, but in close geographical proximity (e.g., shifting United States-based business processes to Canada/Latin America); inshoring, which means picking services within a country; and bestshoring or rightshoring, picking the "best shore" based on various criteria. Business process outsourcing (BPO) refers to outsourcing arrangements when entire business functions (such as Finance & Accounting, Customer Service, etc.) are outsourced. More specific terms can be found in the field of software development - for example Global Information System as a class of systems being developed for / by globally distributed teams.
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