Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:05, 13 January 2007

Merging with Offshoring IT Services

The section on Offshoring is more generic and deals with both IT and Business Process Offshoring. There is a need to continue with a distinct page for Offshoring IT ServicesB2bhandshake

• Strong agree with merging these articles. Given that the only reference in this entire article is "Testimony on Chinese Currency Manipulation", there's clearly a lack of independent information specifically on this topic. Virtually every point in the Offshoring IT services article is duplicated in the Offshore article. My suggested next step is for someone to propose a framework for the new, merged article.Strom 20:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The Internet has been fundamental in enabling the offshoring of IT services, and remains a vital medium for the transmission of IT services. Arguably, the Internet isn't quite as vital for other offshore services, such as legal and banking services. Therefore I would argue for keeping the two articles separate. Gavin Wilson 07:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Merging with Offshore Outsourcing

Outsourcing and offshoring are two related, but distinct topics. Outsourcing is the movement of an internal business function to an external company, regardless of the location of the company. Offshoring is the movement of an internal business function to another country, regardless of whether it stays in the same company or not. Offshore outsourcing is the combination of the two, the movement of an internal business function to both another company and another country. The terms are not synonymous and none should be removed or merged considering the various issues concerning the various combinations of these topics. Vicissidude 20:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Request to Add

Details of a book on offshoring by Prof. Erran Carmel and Paul Tjia appear as references. Why not allow inclusion of Abstract of a new book by Mohan Babu "Offshoring IT Services : A framework for managing outsourced projects" (McGrawHill India) http://www.offshoringmanagement.com/theBook.htm?

Trademark

I added "rightshoring" as a synonym of "bestshoring", without realising that it is a trademark. What's more, it's a trademark of my employer! I have removed the term, am recusing myself from this issue, I leave it up to the rest of the Misplaced Pages community as to whether and how the trademarked term can be used in this article. My inclusion of the trademark in the article does not grant any specific permissions on behalf of my company, and neither should my removal imply any official statement on the use of this trademark. I am acting in this regard as an individual and not as a representitive of Capgemini PLC. — PhilHibbs | talk 09:28, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

History

I do not think we should claim that offshoring started when the US jobs moved to Mexico. I cannot see anything indicating that offshoring did not take place before or that Northen America is a better example than all the others. Please be aware of the fact that this is not a US encyclopedia. 213.23.130.15 16:11, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC) US encyclopedia or not, this IS an English encyclopedia. Considering that the US holds the largest English-speaking population in the world, it is appropriate to bring up US examples.

Completely Irrelevant Content

Debate->Legal Concerns

First two examples are completely irrelevant for below reasons and should be either removed or replaced with appropriate and relevant examples.

The 'Concern' seems to be that there may not be a legal recourse if problems arise. The example (Indian Citibank, MPhasis BFL) states that the fraudulent employees were arrested - meaning there was appropriate, competent recourse provided by the country's legal system and law keepers. Secondly this incident can happen any where on the earth and is purely dependant on the individuals in question. Remember Enron happened right here in the USA. So I question the presence of this as an example of Legal Concern.

Legal recourse means more than just prosecution for fraud. It also means reimbursement for damages. It is currently unclear whether Citibank customers can sue for these breaches. It's so unclear that, given the nature of the offshoring relationship, it's impossible to determine who the responsible party is. Should a Citibank customer sue Citibank, Mphasis BFL Group, or the customer service reps involved? In which country do they take this action? Are there legal protections available in the foreign country for the private citizen? How does an individual know they will receive a fair trail considering the overwhelming corruption in that country? None of these questions are easily answered by the average person doing business with Citibank. And none of these questions arise if offshoring was not present. Vicissidude

Next on to the Intel India sackings - First and foremost this is not at all connected to offshoring as the Citibank event where seemingly American jobs were transferred to India. This is "Intel India", an independent entity similar to any other company with international operations. Again in this case there was fraud which happened with a dishonest motive from Intel India's employees to save income tax (payed in India) and which was acted upon by Intel. (Legal system allowed them to take action against the fraudulent employees). Employees doing fraudulent activities is not limited to one particular country, there is no reason to believe country 'X' has 100% honest citizens. This example proves nothing in particular which might even be remotely connected to offshoring, the subject of the article.

Offshoring includes any jobs transferred overseas, whether they were outsourced or not. While I agree that fraudulent activities are not limited to any one particular country, fraud is especially prevalent in third world countries (http://www.transparency.org/policy_and_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2005). When an independent auditing report states that fraudulent employee practises are endemic in one particular country, it can certainly be believed. Again, first world company and customer exposure to this level of fraud and corruption come up due to offshoring. Vicissidude

Debate Sections

I recently removed a bunch of arguments which stated that we should offshore because the third world needs money more than the first world. Further, they stated that jobs lost due to offshoring in the first world are easily recovered and are often better than the alternative jobs in the third world. Therefore, first world people should be happy losing their jobs since they're helping someone in the third world who would otherwise work in a sweatshop. Any of these topics I would love to debate you on. But, they need their own debate sections. Littering these comments throughout the current sections is inappropriate for the sections they were put under. Vicissidude 23:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, there is a large body of evidence that suggests that free trade is a net producer of jobs. One missing fact in this piece is that the US has a trade surplus in outsourced services. In other words, more countries outsource to companies in the US than US companies outsource to foreign countries. The surplus is about $50 billion. There is also data that shows that jobs created in foreign countries as a consequence of outsourcing and foreign direct investment pay significantly better than locally produced jobs. Since it also represents increased demand for labor within a particular market, the wages of all workers tend to rise as a consequence. Mchoate 14:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Again, this was posted in the incorrect section, which was my point. Post it in the correct section first, and then we can have this discussion. Vicissidude 21:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Comparative Advantage

The entire section about comparative advantage is false. the idea of comparative advantage is that even if one country is better at EVERYTHING than another country, they will still benefit from trade, and will therefore both have economies with jobs. What is written is just nonsense that confuses the concept of comparative advantage.

No, you are denying that countries can develop an absolute advantage. When the idea of comparative advantage was developed in 1817, factors like geography and climate were defining factors in product development. You could not move production to another country then. Because of these differences, it was realistic that different countries could have different costs of production. Today, knowledge is the basis of the economy, not geography and climate. Companies work the same way regardless of locations, so the location with the lowest cost has the advantage. Without different cost ratios, there is no basis for comparative advantage. Asia has the absolute advantage due to it's access to overwhelmingly abundant cheap, skilled labor. (Paraphrased from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_12/b3875614.htm) Vicissidude 18:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The theory of comparative advantage is not expunged by today's economic conditions. Re-read the first person's comments: even if Asia was best at everything, they would only focus on where they could get the highest return and then trade with others, leaving others to produce the rest of the goods (where other countries have comparative - but not absolute - advantage). Anyway, Asia clearly doesn't have an absolute advantage and never will. For example, Asia imports heavily capital goods. More generally, the world economy is too dynamic, with innovations popping up all the time, for one nation to be the experts on them all.

Vicissidude - I'm afraid that's just a basic error! The cost ratios you should focus on are those for different industries (or tasks) within the same country. These ratios can be based on the costs of producing 'knowledge' products, agriculture or whatever you like. In turn, it's the international differences between these ratios that generate potential gains from trade. These gains from trade are as valid for the offshoring of intermediate service fucntions as they are of grain, guns, butter etc.

--Nmcmurdo 00:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Edits

To claim my edits removing the US bias from thje article were vandalism as an anonm has recently done are indicative of something wrong. I presume the anon was vandalising and if not perhaps he or she would care to give an explanation, TV Genius 23:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

From Neutral Point of View, The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant published points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.

The wholesale removal of text in the name of "removing the US bias" goes against NPOV. According to NPOV, all points of view are to be presented. You can change the text, but you can not remove it. 67.183.93.53 19:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If someone makes a complex set of edits and you disagree with bits iof it you shouldn't revert but reedit the bits you didnt like, as you have done today. Content clearly can be removed without it being vandalism, you have misunderstsood the malicious nature of vandalism. I agree tht all points of view are to be presented but not one dominanatly, and IMO the US view is still very predominant but at least now it doesn't read like an encyclopedic article from an American encyclopedia. There were also style points I changed, see WP:MOS which you have left today, great, this makes the article look more like a wikipedia article. NPOV means treating the winners and losers of offshoring impartially not just concentrating on how bad it is for developed countries and how corrupt third world countries are. It seemed like an article seent hrough US and developed world tinted spectacles whereas the content of the article has an equal effect on third world countries. TV Genius 01:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an English encyclopedia. The United States is the largest English-speaking country in the world. So, it is only natural for most of the articles to be from an American point of view. The answer to that is not to remove whole paragraphs which only you consider to be from a US POV, but to balance those paragraphs by adding a different POV. That is particularly true in a "Debate" section, where we want to bring out different points of view to compare and contrast. 67.183.93.53 05:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an intenational encyclopedia in english which is very different from being an English speaking let alone American encyclopedia. It is not acceptable to argue in favor of of the article to be from an Ameican point of view, that is not justifiable under NPOV. Remember vastly more people speak and read english as a second language than as a first language. Also I didnt tag the article so you cant claim only I think this. TV Genius 14:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If there are so many people who speak and read English who are not native English speakers as you say and therefore not from the US, then my point in my previous paragraph is even stronger. You do not need to remove whole paragraphs which only you consider to be from a US POV since all these other non-US English speakers can balance out that POV by adding their own text. Further, in a "Debate" section, it is expected to see any and all points of view, especially since the NPOV specifically states All significant published points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. Further, As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject. And later, The generally accepted policy is that all facts and majority Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article. 67.183.93.53 02:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure where this is going. Perhaps if you could explain which sentence I dfeleted that you objected strongly to, IMO I overall did a good set of edits that have transformed the article into a more updated and less pov article, hence it no longer carries the US centric tag. Obviously people who read English as a second language and are not from or in the US is likely to be much higher in an article like this which is international in nature but with an English language focus, that is the nature of Offshoring. Which is why it was so important to balance out the US bias, and I believe it has now more or less been done. TV Genius 18:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Links

The Red-herring link under educational concerns is invalid and links to the google cache. The site that holds the archived copy requires registration. Can an alternate source for this study be found (eg the journal article if that is what it is?) In the mean time i have un-linked it User A1 03:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Leakage

We dont need a lecture one conomics here nor do we want the article to reasd as if we are a first world encyclopedia only interested in first world countiries and the latest edit implied that that was the case. All POV's yes, just your own POV no. Your edit implies that offshoring actually equals leakage which implies we only conmsider the POV of rich countries. This states as fact your opinion and makes for unbalanced article, which it already is anyway. Please dont make it worse, SqueakBox 19:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Stop inventing lying claims of vandalism and engage in the talk page like any decent editor, SqueakBox 19:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

You are the one removing the listing. That is vandalism.

The fact is, leakage IS a topic of debate in offshoring. This topic DOES belong in this article. Just because YOU do not like it does NOT mean it should be removed. This article is not all about YOU and YOUR point of view.

Economics IS a factor concerning offshoring. The fact that YOU do not want to hear about the economics behind offshoring shows that YOU don't really understand the topic. So, please leave the editing to people who actually know something about the topic.

Also, please check your edits before you start posting. Your spelling is atrocious.24.17.42.210 20:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)