Outsourcing versus Offshoring

It seems like every time I turn around there is a new survey. One says Lean rocks, one says almost everyone that tries Lean fails, and one says Dilbert ruined Six Sigma. OK, this last one is stretching it a bit. Maybe.

Well just today I read about a survey done by Bain and Company that claims offshoring provides more “satisfaction” than outsourcing even though outsourcing is used much more (70% of respondents claimed to outsource).

The article stated, “This year the survey includes 1,221 responses from more than 70 countries. The study focuses on 25 most popular management trends and tools, including Six Sigma, outsourcing, offshoring, benchmarking, collaborative innovation, core competencies, customer relationship management, growth strategy tools, strategic planning and knowledge management.”

They managed to make a decent little 4 quad showing how the various “management trends” as they call them ranked based on usage and satisfaction. I understand the usage bit but am not so sure how satisfaction is defined.

In the case of outsourcing are we supposed to say I love the fact I can’t build things myself and have to send them to other countries who claim to do it cheaper? Or am I missing something with respect to what satisfaction means.

It was interesting to see where “Lean operations” and “Six Sigma” landed. It seems more people are using Lean and are slightly more satisfied. I wonder what Scott Adams and Dilbert think about this? Perhaps they will speak on it soon. Cick here to read the article yourself.

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