The Business of Outsourcing

Since the Business of Outsourcing focuses specifically on delivering relevant information to its audience about off shoring, a large number of our competitors are either knowledge databases or aggregators rather than individual sites dedicated solely to outsourcing services.

Specific Competitors

Wikipedia

The majority of our audience will inevitably be directed towards Wikipedia in their search on outsourcing. While Wikipedia does an excellent job of providing a quick overview of the phenomenon, it does not grant the user the benefit of an in-depth analysis of the matter. Furthermore, Wikipedia suffers from various quality-control issues. With its reliance on community involvement, it retains the biases and received wisdom of the public. However, this community involvement is a benefit as well since Wikipedia manages to remain current in its discussion and supplies the reader with a large number of relevant external resources. Though Wikipedia carefully words its article on outsourcing to appear unbiased, the majority of the page is dedicated to addressing criticisms of outsourcing. Fortunately, its users have recognized this deficiency and the page issues a cautionary warning.

Nevertheless, Wikipedia serves as an excellent starting point for the amateur reader seeking to become more acquainted with the issue of outsourcing while its bibliography will hopefully redirect users seeking a more complex investigation of the matter.

SourcingMag.com

Sourcingmag has designed its site around companies looking to outsource parts of their business. While it does have relevant background information on the history and logistics of outsourcing a business, it takes an academic approach to introducing companies with outsourcing services. Further, the site is inherently prejudiced towards outsourcing since it gains revenue through use of the services listed in its database. The site supplies easy access to instruction on managing a relationship with businesses in India including particular strategies on maintaining healthy partnerships with Indian outsourcing firms. One aspect, which it does manage well and would be beneficial to emulate, is the handling of sponsored links in an unobtrusive manner. Though it is rich with well-researched articles and links to press releases and recent news, the main annoyance with the site is that it overwhelms its readers with large paragraphs of academic writing unbroken by any graphic elements or visual aids. Sourcingmag would thus largely be a complementary service to our site since our main user base is composed of individuals rather than business managers or companies looking to outsource.

Outsource Magazine

This site is similar in approach to SourcingMag though it targets a more informed audience and managers who have already undertaken the operation of outsourcing. The site’s immediate failure is that it lacks any formal identification of its purpose and serves more to assemble a database of relevant news articles than any well-organized original content to inform the average person. Again, like SourcingMag, it offers links to “trusted” outsourcing providers, obscuring its neutrality on the issue. The design of the site itself is somewhat distracting and is littered with references to ambiguous partnerships with obscure outsourcing consulting firms.

The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

American author and New York Times contributor, Thomas Friedman provides his readers with an excellent historical analysis and context of outsourcing while using several anecdotal experiences of his time with pioneers in the Indian technology sector. His writing style is easy to process and is geared towards the novice reader. Contrary to other authors on the issue, Friedman reveals a certain inclination towards free trade and open markets. This may be viewed as reverse bias, but for the most part, Friedman’s work remains free of any extreme political leanings. The primary difficulty is that Friedman’s material is only available in printed form though he does have some electronic work in the form of podcasts and visual media. Even so, this requires effort on the part of his readership to physically purchase or borrow a copy of his work, which may be taxing for readers who are looking for a quick guide to the topic. Though Friedman’s text targets the same audience as our site, he is not in direct competition due to his chosen method of delivery. Finally, our site possesses a major advantage over “The World is Flat” since our content is free and widely available.

Miscellaneous Documentaries and Journalistic Articles

Though the quality varies greatly from publication to publication, nearly all of these articles tend to repeat similar rhetoric about outsourcing and its detrimental effects on the US economy without offering any significant insight into the realistic benefits. Since there is no source that easily aggregates these articles into a compelling sustained argument, there is a lack of cohesion, leaving readers confused and misinformed.