> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 08:19:34 -0500
> From: jenningr@stolaf.edu (Randolph Jennings)
>
> > The units that serve other units internally, generally
> >have a captive audience and behave in a monopolistic way. In most cases
> >the internal customer does not have any other choices and can not take its
> >business elsewhere. This is when I would normally recommend outsourcing
> >what the internal supplier does, unless it is an essential or vital to the
> >business future, security, etc. Outsourcing gives the internal customer
> >the power to demand quality!
>
> Isn't this view somewhat antithetical to the aspirations of a learning
> organization? It seems to me that outsourcing is often a very
> straightforward application of the short-term thinking that haunts so many
> businesses. Rather than fix the long-term problem (the failure of various
> functions to work toward a common goal), let's just get rid of it's
> symptoms (the "monopolistic" behavior of individual units).
[...quote of prev msg trimmed by your host...]
No, I don't think that outsourcing goes against the fundamentals
of organizational learning. To learn we don't really have to own the
processes or the elements that participate in it. Chrysler's new LH cars
have an average of 5,000 parts each. About 70% of these parts are
outsourced. Other firms do the same. Chrysler has started to practice
what other companies in the world have been doing for some time -
concurrent learning. There is a lot more interaction between the supplier
(and sub-suppliers) and the company from the very start of the process of
designing, enggineering, etc. of the product. This leads to a lot of
learning between the parties involved, etc. As technologies and products
become more complex and sophisticated, we must realize that any company's
expertise and pride is no longer on building whole products but some of
the components. There is more competitiveness in developing strategic
alliances [J.I.T., Keiretsu (sp), etc.] than playing the game alone.
Ivan,
--
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