Uncle Sam cries "Who moved My Cheese"'

By
Sonali Banerjee

“Work harder or it will be outsourced to a guy sitting in Bangalore” is what parents, not to mention the President himself, tell their kids in U.S. and quite rightly so, as is evident from the uproar outsourcing created in the US Parliament recently.

Recently, international news was dominated by the US Anti-Outsourcing Bill. The bill, which was proposed and staunchly supported by President Barack Obama himself, proposed that the companies in US which outsource their jobs to other countries were to be taxed extra. It could be seen as a form of negative incentive where companies would have to cut their outsourcing and thereby create or secure jobs for fellow American citizens. Obama presented this bill with a view to boost employment in US, which is yet recover from the hangover of the 2008 demonic recession, and lobbied hard to put an end to the tax breaks enjoyed by all the outsourcing firms. This came soon after the Nasscom delegation representing the crème de-la crème of the IT sector visited the United States.

This proposed idea created quite an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty in India Inc. which holds more than 50 percent of the global outsourcing market. Although it was expressed by Obama that the bill was not aimed at India but applied to all countries equally, none the less,it cannot be denied that the repercussions would have been strongest for our country. It was strongly opposed by the corporate sector and was not very well received by the government as well. Finance Minister Dr. Pranab Mukherjee expressed his disapproval of the bill and went on to state, even in the international media, that “such protectionist moves were unacceptable.”

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Whether IT may bring sustainable competitive advantage for organizations?

By
Lohash Lakra

These days IT is crucial to the majority of businesses. Almost all companies use IT to some extent, making it important for employees to have proficient knowledge in the area. It is not longer just IT jobs where staff needs a good knowledge of IT. Almost all office based jobs are now almost entirely based around computers and IT.
IT can be complex, especially in businesses that use it to a large degree, and as with all technologies there will be things that go wrong.

According to Porter: -

A value chain is a chain of activities for a firm operating in a specific industry. The business unit is the appropriate level for construction of a value chain, not the divisional level or corporate level. Products pass through all activities of the chain in order, and at each activity the product gains some value. The chain of activities gives the products more added value than the sum of added values of all activities. It is important not to mix the concept of the value chain with the
costs occurring throughout the activities.

The five forces model should be used at the line-of-business industry level; it is not designed to be used at the industry group or industry sector level. An industry is defined at a lower, more basic level: a market in which similar or closely related products and/or services are sold to buyers. Porter makes clear that for diversified companies, the first fundamental issue in corporate strategy is the selection of industries (lines of business) in which the company should compete; and each line of business should develop its own, industry-specific, five forces
analysis.

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