Winter 2006 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra
Global Outsourcing
Gabby Templet ’04, now a Peace Corps volunteer in Romania, experienced global outsourcing firsthand when her U.S. employer at the time threw its hat into the ring. “As a production assistant at Grey House Publishing in the Berkshires [Mass.] I oversaw an outsourced data-entry job sent to a company in India,” says Templet.
That outsourcing turned out to be a mixed blessing. Grey House, which puts out reference books, saved a lot of money on fact-checking and data entry on the project – updating a reference book; but Templet was kept busy correcting mistakes made by the contractors.
Still, Templet saw a benefit to the U.S. employees in the outsourcing deal. In this case, Grey Publishing did not let its data-entry staff people go; instead, they “could work on high-revenue projects instead of using time to update a low-volume seller,” says Templet.
Halfway around the planet, issues of global competition are coming up again for Templet.
The hot topic in Romania now is the looming prospect of joining the European Union, says Templet. “One major fear people in Romania have about EU entry is that foreign companies will come in here and run small domestic companies out of business,” she says. The up side is that the stores from other European countries offer more goods at lower prices, and also bring higher technology and better management styles, says Templet.
For local Romanian businesses, “the only way to compete in the global market is to find a niche and be the best in it,” says Templet. The foreign stores cannot, she says, “offer the freshest Transylvanian strong brandy for demanding customers.”
