There are many American companies that were thought to be left for dead with cheap overseas labor (Intel for example) and they are the booming/thriving companies today. These successful companies do it by changing with the global economy.
At what point can you not increase utilization of your resources anymore to compete? It's the hey..look at me- I'm spending a dollar to save a nickel theory.
It's a tough position to be in. I'll leave the company I work for nameless, but we are a mostly services company today and we are in my humble opinion, 'saving' American jobs in the future by outsourcing some of our services work now. My co worker is calling it 'testing the waters'. By resourcing maybe 5% of jobs overseas, how many will not pan out and need to come back tomorrow, a month from now or next year?
Have you ever had to call a helpdesk and get someone on the phone that is so difficult to understand you just hang up? I did calling my own company's help desk. The only part I understood was they were located in India.
We had another situation where we gave a contract to a Latin American country because they were 'so much cheaper' and they had done this type of work before.... 3 months later we are already taking the work back since they cannot handle the load. The customer is ticked off and threatening to walk. Latin American countries lack the technical experience and know how for the American based customer.
Where is the balance? Wish I knew for sure. But I do know I am looking forward to making sure my employees are kept safe by putting out the best products/services we can. You cannot argue with quality!
