I imagine many of you were waiting for this day to come: the day when the troubles of outsourcing begin to outweigh the benefits. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to start a reverse consulting firm – US consulting firms assisting US companies in relocating their production back to the US. How’s that for irony?
As an article in Wired examines, for many companies, particularly small- to mid-size firms, the problem with outsourcing their production to China has begun to reach a zero-sum point, where the labor savings are nearly-to-entirely negated by delays, malfunctions, rising Chinese labor costs, double outsourcing (where your Chinese factory outsources to another Chinese factory in a different part of the country), and the ever-present risk of intellectual property theft – in other words, having a knock-off of your product made by a Chinese producer.
Especially troubling was the difference in service between what the huge manufacturers receive, those who produce in the millions, verses companies whose orders to China are only in the tens of thousands. For many mid-size companies, the potential labor savings are no longer worth the trouble and risk.
Are you beginning to see companies from your country relocate their production back home?
Rich Laburn is filmmaker, photographer and writer who is based at Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Spending his time capturing scenes of the wild and communicating the beauty of the African bushveld, he runs the Londolozi Blog as a way to entertain and engage people wishing to visit these wild lands.
