Persuasive Paper Part 2: Solutions and Advantages

ASSIGNMENT 4: Persuasive Paper Part 2: Solutions and Advantages

OFFSHORING IS KILLING THE AMERICAN DREAM

“Are you in India or America?” It’s a question I hear at least once in any given forty-hour week at my job. To the untrained ear, this question sounds like an attempt at making small talk. Since I have been on the client side of my field of work, I can identify with this question. It is question loaded with stories of poor service quality, images of sweatshops and children working for much less than ethically imaginable. Offshoring is one of the most despised ways of servicing customers. The money saved by the company who employs these methods are insurmountable, however the loss due to the dissatisfaction of customers not only affects the health of that company, it stands to be a contributing factor of detriment to the health of the US economy as a whole.

Offshoring, a type of outsourcing, as defined by sourcingmag.com is “having the outsourced business functions done in another country.” Outsourcing has been noted as far back as the 1800’s. However it wasn’t declared as an official business practice until the late 80’s. In it’s initial stages, it was in fact an innocent practice in that companies didn’t use it to increase profits; they used it to overcome their shortcomings. For example, a printing company who didn’t have the resources to print the quality that was necessary for maintaining their business would contact out the production. In more recent years, outsourcing has been used to replace labor and cut costs (Hanfield, 2006). The specific type of outsourcing, offshoring, is what has had adverse effects on the way we live, and has the potential of affecting our future way of living.

As minimum wage and cost of living increases year by year, it has become increasingly difficult for many major companies to maintain competitive prices and still make a profit. An executive of Wal-Mart, a...