Question

Many companies outsource all or part of their production process or even their customer service. This is an option for companies that may not have in-house expertise or as a possible cost-savings measure. What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing when it comes to maintaining quality standards? Do quality standards even matter to consumers today, and should they be a priority for companies?

Answer 1

Outsourcing is the process in which a company generally outsource or transfers its operations and working of some parts or all parts to other companies to do it for them so the former company could focus more on important areas.

Advantages of outsourcing are:

1. Cost effective: One of the main advantages of outsourcing is the cost effective techniques. It helps the company to transfer the work to the specialised people and would save the time for the company to focus and work on more important factors in its project.

2. Quality Assured: The second advantage is the quality assurance. The people you are transferring your job or work to are already specialised in doing that, thus the quality is assured at large for the same job.

Disadvantages of outsourcing are:

1. Loss of Control: The disadvantage would be the loss of control as the management is transfering the activities out from the premises, it won't be effectively able to control the activities of the organisation.

2. Difficulty in Management: One more disavantage would be loss of management as you are not able to manage the actvities happening in another organisation, which makes you feel restricted accordingly.

Yes quality standards means and matters a lot to the customers. Infact, quality is one of the basis for the strategy of differentiation for the market where if many companies are competing to provide the best prdouct, the highest quality one is always selected because the consumer is always ready to pay more if quality is highest.