Outsourcing small scale
Outsourcing isn’t limited to managers and the higher ups – now even simple employees are outsourcing their jobs to counterparts in foreign shores.
US programmers are now outsourcing coding projects to Indian techies for a fraction of the price. This not only gives him a self-promotion to manager of sorts, it also frees up his time to focus on his core competencies – be it managing other similarly outsourced projects, brushing up on other skills and knowledge. Simply put, it is practicing the principle of ‘comparative advantage’.
A good example would be that of a Slashdot.org’s programmer’s: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."
This has spawned a new breed of companies: the micro multinationals. This provides an interesting contrast to ‘incubation’ which has given rise to venture capital startups that ship off some of their business functions to investors.
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