Understanding Business Outsourcing: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

The assignment discusses the concept of business outsourcing functions, its effectiveness, benefits, and drawbacks. The author shares their learning journey through two assignments, formulating hypotheses and conducting primary and secondary research to gain a thorough understanding of the concept. The discussion highlights how outsourcing can be beneficial for organizations in terms of cost savings, improved efficiency, and access to specialized skills. However, it also emphasizes the potential negative impacts on employees, customer relationships, and organizational culture. The author concludes that gaining knowledge about business outsourcing is crucial for future career goals, particularly for entrepreneurs who may need to make strategic decisions regarding outsourcing.

Running head: BUSINESS OUTSOURCING FUNCTIONS
Assignment 3
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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BUSINESS OUTSOURCING FUNCTIONS
Introduction
In the reflective journal below I have discussed about the learning experience I have
gathered from the assignments one and two based on the topic Business outsourcing
functions.
Effectiveness and usefulness of the learning experience
Outsourcing functioning thus seems to be very much beneficial for the organization,
as it has been found to enhance the efficiency, productivity as well as the cost effectiveness.
The benefits help the organization hugely so that the organization can concentrate fully on
their core business this can in return earn them more profits. Apart from this outsourcing also
helps in continuity and risk management, staffing flexibility and controlling the operations as
well as reduces overhead. It is very much effective when the back-office functioning of an
organization is too complex in nature, but due to the size of the organization performing the
functions at a reasonable cost is gets difficult, thus outsourcing is helpful for such situations
(Chen and Xiao 2015).
This learning experience will have greater value if it can be implemented to any
organization in the future so that the organization can focus on its main business by handing
over other works to a third party enterprise who will work in the same company. However,
the importance of outsourcing is learnt which will help any organization to decrease their
costs in many areas. The value that can also be added is that outsourcing provides the
emerging economies with ample job opportunities. As technology is developing thus,
outsourcing can access to the present most technology. Thus, further an organization can
outsource their IT department and help increase productivity.

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How this learning experience will be useful
This concept of outsourcing will be very much useful in this course or be it in the
future career for me because as I am planning to start my own business so from this concept
I am clear that by following this business functioning I can very well maintain a balance of
on-site support to the employees in my organization. Apart for this, currently for my course
and program this learning experience provided me with a clear idea of what this outsourcing
it and how organizations are benefited by applying this strategy. It thus taught me that it
bridges the gap in staffing so that the employees can learn better quality techniques or
enhancement of any production design that is at fault (Peppard and Ward 2016).
The knowledge that I have gained is very much useful and I can apply it in any
workplace where I may find the concept to be suitable depending upon the situation. By
applying this, I can not only save money but also get better productivity. This can further help
me to extract the best talented employees in my organization. Thus, when the work is divided
and handed over to experts, the outcome will be of better quality.
Objective description of what happened in the learning process
During the learning process, I came to know the meaning, the advantages and the
disadvantages of this particular topic. It was a new topic which I had no idea previously.
Thus, I had to do a lot o research by reading journal articles, blogs, research papers that were
available in the internet. Apart from these, I also had a discussion related to this topic with
my seniors as well as relatives who have knowledge and practical experiences related to
outsourcing business functions.
Throughout the learning process, my confusions related to this topic got clearer and I
could form a better picture of what outsourcing is and how it benefits an organizations.
However, in the very beginning I was not expecting that it could also have certain harmful

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effects that are applying this strategy (Massini and Miozzo 2012). The most important
negative effects that I think the organization faces is having quality issues as the internal
functions are going to the third party thus, evaluation and monitoring is needed to avoid these
type of affects. Lastly, ethical relationship must be maintained among both the company,
which however gets in danger maximum of the time.
Evaluation of what is being learnt
Business research on this particular topic actually helped me to predict the trends,
mark the opportunities and lastly, circumvent potential problems. There are various purpose
for a business research but from this particular business research about outsourcing
functioning I came to know that how an organization can develop minimizing its cost and
focusing thoroughly on their core activities. Through this business research, I gathered
various information regarding what business outsourcing functioning is, their benefits to
different organizations and the problems that are associated with the outsourcing functioning
of business (Sekaran and Bougie 2016).
While doing this business research I gain indepth knowledge of outsourcing through
quantitative and qualitative research methodology (Zikmund et al. 2013). From the literature
review I came to know that that there are many previous researcher who never consider
outsourcing as a core activity of any business although it make profits for the organization. In
2012, Lee, Ching Yeung and Hong in their research came up with the conclusion that a
proper outsourcing arrangement will reduce the customer-lead time and cost effectiveness.
Moreover, I have also learnt that how this strategy of outsourcing, guides to extract domestic
earning in the foreign markets whereas negatively affecting the employees of the homeland
(Deresky 2017).

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Explaining learning process
The reason behind choosing the topic of business outsourcing is that I had huge
curiosity to get an in depth knowledge and a clear conception related to this functioning in
organizations. I wanted to know the importance that it has on the firms and how the
organizations are benefited applying this strategy in their functioning. However, there are
many research journals and blogs that discusses about outsourcing but none of them could
clear all my doubts. Thus, I did the activities (assignment 1 and 2) formulating the hypothesis
consisting of primary and secondary research questions that helped me to have a better
understanding of what actually business outsourcing is.
Business outsourcing is very well connected with the managerial concepts that guide
an organization. It is beneficial as well as harmful in many areas. Thus, through both of these
assignments I could gain a thorough learning of the concept of outsourcing, the factors that
cause an organization to opt for this strategy and how it functions in an organization.
Therefore, doing the assignments I got a clear picture and understanding of what and why
organizations take up business outsourcing (Lacity and Willcocks 2013).
Application of this learning
As I have already mentioned that I want to became an entrepreneur and start my own
business that my future goals are clear that how would I apply this concept that I have learn.
Ultimately, my aim will be to make profit in an ethical way so to concentrate on the core
business activities and performing the important functions in an efficient way I would
collaborate with a third party enterprise. This will benefit my company in a huge manner as
my own employees will be only focusing on the important activities rather than burdening
themselves with other functions along with the core activities (Schwarz 2014).

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Outsourcing with another company will earn me profit and help my employees with
the important tasks that hold huge importance for growth in the market. However, as I have
also learnt about the harmful effects that outsourcing has along with its advantages thus, I
need to be alert when I am implementing it in my business so that I can minimize the harmful
effects as much as I can.
Conclusion
Thus from this above reflective journal it can be concluded that a thorough knowledge
about the topic business outsourcing functioning has been successfully gathered that can help
in the course, future career and life in general.

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References
Chen, K. and Xiao, T., 2015. Outsourcing strategy and production disruption of supply chain
with demand and capacity allocation uncertainties. International Journal of Production
Economics, 170, pp.243-257.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures.
Pearson Education India.
Lacity, M.C. and Willcocks, L.P., 2013. Outsourcing business processes for innovation. MIT
Sloan management review, 54(3), p.63.
Lee, C.K.M., Ching Yeung, Y. and Hong, Z., 2012. An integrated framework for outsourcing
risk management. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 112(4), pp.541-558.
Massini, S. and Miozzo, M., 2012. Outsourcing and offshoring of business services:
challenges to theory, management and geography of innovation. Regional Studies, 46(9),
pp.1219-1242.
Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a
digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
Schwarz, C., 2014. Toward an understanding of the nature and conceptualization of
outsourcing success. Information & Management, 51(1), pp.152-164.
Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013. Business research methods.
Cengage Learning.