What is international outsourcing?

Answer 1

What is International Outsourcing?"International outsourcing" can take many forms.

• Exportation, either directly or by subcontracting of particular tasks or functions to a foreign enterprise for performance offshore (the "out-tasking" model), for use in the customer's home country after completion.
• Partial exportation of a task, such as the accelerated design through "7 X 24" design operations using two interdependent teams in different time zones (another "out-tasking" model).
• Reliance upon a foreign external enterprise to support a foreign subsidiary of the U.S. customer (the "foreign local subsidiary" model). This is typically a part of "global outsourcing" (across territorial boundaries). But could equally be done country-by-country and managed by the headquarters staff, in-house, in the home country or regional centers. (The global multilateral outsourcing model challenges the later model.)
• Establishment of a jointly owned subsidiary for the provision of shared services to affiliates (the "shared services" model).
• Reliance upon a multinational enterprise to support a multinational customer's operations in multiple countries (the "global multilateral outsourcing" model). This model includes cases involving "private label" services by the outsourcer to create foreign business infrastructures rapidly. Private label outsourcing is expanding rapidly, particularly with regional telephone call centers for "customer care."
• Without one of these other models, "international outsourcing" does not include a simple, one-time localization service to adapt a product or service to the local foreign market.