Supply Chain
The article argues about the labor outsourcing in most of the organizations in the United States. Over the past decades, most of the industries has relied heavily on outsourcing labor rather than depending on the domestic labor in the home country. In the current scenario, Apple company employees 43, 000 workers in United States, as compared to over 700,000 employees the company employs overseas.
The reason that has been attributed to the lean domestic employment undertaken by the company is due to the extensive mid-skilled workers. Though it has been argued that the company assembled its operations in overseas due to wage differences; that is not the case. The article analyzes the changes and strategies that the organization need to incorporate in management in order to be competitive, and labor outsourcing is no exception. The competitiveness of international organizations depends entirely on the company’s ability to distribute customized products that are quickly and timely accessed across the globe. Though United States had a high employee-turnover, Apple company preferred China due to the flexible mid-skilled labor. The main challenge that organizations face is the cut-throat competition between companies that aim at accessing labor or customers across their domestic territory.
These have enabled firms to compete in suppy chains either in the form of accessing raw materials or distributing end-products to the consumers. As such, an organization’s ability to enhance long-term and trust-based business relationships with workforce, suppliers, and shareholders becomes vital in the competitive economy. The propensity of increasing cooperation and regulation among various organizations in the globe enhances complexity in managing the organization’s activities.Apple Company’s strategic goal of outsourcing mid-skilled labor was a legitimate strategy for a profit-making organization. Though there is a reduction of additional costs to produce a large number of products, the organization also ensured that the products were produced within the stipulated period.
Ideally, managers of the company are tied between satisfying the needs of mid-skilled workforce and that of increasing the profitability and growth of an organization. In the case of workforce’ demands, the political power directs the treatment of the domestic workers without inculcating the effect it would have on the organization’s profitability. Though profitability is the key strategic goal for every organization, Apple Company needs to outline the demands for the domestic workforce. In an attempt to realize successive Supply Chain Management, the focus should be on segmenting customers and workforce that is based on the service needs. Grouping the workforce as either mid-skilled or low-skilled workforce ensures that management can minimize any conflict arising between domestic workforce and overseas workforce.
In addition, the management needs to customize the logistics networks to the profitability and service requirements of the various customer segments. Indeed, some of the products may be sophisticated—for instance the glass screen of the iPhones—and well-trained staff needs to be allocated such activity. Apart from this, the management needs to listen to the market indicators and issues a prospective outlining the economy’s demand plan across the globe so as to ensure consistent prediction and facilitate optimal resource allocation.Consequently, the management needs to initiate and effective supply chain-wide technology, which will offer support to the various stages of decision making in an attempt to enhance inherent flow of services, information, and products. Increasing the scope of supply chain management, Apple will ensure that its resources are distributed across the globe, and the quantity supplied meets the quantity demanded in the economy.
Therefore, it is recommended that supply chain management should be widely articulated by the company in an attempt to enhance its profitability.
