Essay - Global Communications Benchmarking Researching Global Communications Benchmarking Practices of Outsourcing...

Global Communications Benchmarking Researching

Global Communications Benchmarking

Practices of outsourcing are becoming more and more popular for the American manufacturers as they generally support them in reduc*****g costs ***** maximizing profits. This trend is extremely obvious within the shoe making industry and two significant representatives in this *****stance, aside ***** most ***** Nike, are the New Balance and Reebok.

***** at New Balance

***** famous shoe maker began outsourcing operations in the early 1980s ***** commenced by sending work to Japan, *****n to South Korea and eventually Taiwan (Parloff, 2006). When the company first commenced *****se *****, their American employees ***** to fear for ***** jobs and the unions pressured the employer. The response was that not all jobs would be sent abroad. And ***** kept their word; *****day, ***** Balance still maintains 25 percent of their jobs within the United States. This basically means that, unlike Reebok, Nike and other competitors, New Balance still faces larger *****; their labor costs ***** generally between 10 and 12 percent higher than those registered by the companies that entirely outsource operations to o*****r countries. In order to respond to this potential threat without jeopardizing the positions ***** their employees, the management at New ***** implemented various strategies aimed at increasing productivity and counter-balancing as such the incre*****ed costs. "But productivity at New Balance's five U.S. plants is much greater, lowering other costs. We're able to deliver into the market in a matter of days, where our competitors are looking at a matter of weeks and sometimes months" says President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Tompkins. To speed up production, employees assemble in teams, designed to maximize output ***** minimize waste" (Thompson, *****).

***** Balance also takes pride in ***** possibility to label their products with "Made ***** the U.S.," which offers them ***** benefits, such as incre*****ed confidence from the buyer due to higher trust in domestically assembled *****. Aside from ***** ***** of the manufactur*****g operations, the company also conducts internally their design and marketing operations. The future plans ***** the ***** maker ***** yet unknown, but it is possible, according to some sources, ***** the company to entirely outsource their operations to foreign ***** with cheaper ***** force. "Although there is *****thing to be said for manufacturing domestically, they are straying away from the skills that they do better ***** anybody else - the ***** and ***** of the premier running shoe in the industry. ********** long-term strategy should shift to a 100% outsourcing model, allowing them to control ***** niche for the future" (Van Dusen, 1998)

Outsourcing at Reebok

Reebok is ***** another prestigious shoe maker ***** began outsourcing ***** manufacturing operations to the Asian continent at the beginnings ***** the *****. But in l*****e 1990s, the company was struggling ***** had ***** increase the number of laid off employees. The *****s to ***** layoffs had been sett*****d with financial rewards ***** each of the fired individual.

A major problem encountered by the company that ***** most of its