BUS101: Introduction to Business

Offshoring entails a company moving a business process from one country to another.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Explain the benefits of offshoring

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

• Offshoring is the relocation of certain business processes from one country to the other, resulting in large tax breaks and lower labor costs.
• Offshoring can cause controversy in a company's domestic country since it is perceived to impact the domestic employment situation negatively.
• Offshoring of a company's services that were previously produced domestically can be advantageous in lowering operation costs, but has incited some controversy over the economic implications.

Key Terms

• captive: held prisoner; not free; confined
• outsourcing: The transfer of a business function to an external service provider.
• offshoring: The location of a business in another country for tax purposes.

"Offshoring" is a company's relocation of a business process from one country to another. This typically involves an operational process, such as manufacturing, or a supporting process, such as accounting. Even state governments employ offshoring. More recently, offshoring has been associated primarily with the sourcing of technical and administrative services that support both domestic and global operations conducted outside a given home country by means of internal (captive) or external ( outsourcing ) delivery models. The subject of offshoring, also known as "outsourcing," has produced considerable controversy in the United States. Offshoring for U.S. companies can result in large tax breaks and low-cost labor.

Worldwide Offshoring Business: The worldwide offshoring business is projected to equal $500 billion by 2020.

Offshoring can be seen in the context of either production offshoring or services offshoring. After its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the People's Republic of China emerged as a prominent destination for production offshoring. Another focus area includes the software industry as part of Global Software Development and the development of Global Information Systems. After technical progress in telecommunications improved the possibilities of trade in services, India became a leader in this domain; however, many other countries are now emerging as offshore destinations.

The economic logic is to reduce costs. People who can use some of their skills more cheaply than others have a comparative advantage. Countries often strive to trade freely items that are of the least cost to produce.

Related terms include "nearshoring," "inshoring," and "bestshoring," otherwise know as "rightshoring". Nearshoring is the relocation of business processes to (typically) lower cost foreign locations that are still within close geographical proximity (for example, shifting United States-based business processes to Canada/Latin America). Inshoring entails choosing services within a country, while bestshoring entails choosing the "best shore" based on various criteria. Business process outsourcing (BPO) refers to outsourcing arrangements when entire business functions (such as Finance & Accounting and Customer Service) are outsourced. More specific terms can be found in the field of software development; for example, Global Information System as a class of systems being developed for/by globally distributed teams.