Friday, April 15, 2011

Project Management Class: Procurement

Procurement didn't really seem like the right word for this chapter. The majority of our discussion was about outsourcing work or purchasing from outside sources. Outsourcing sounds a bit more accurate in my opinion.

I actually worked in a call center for about a year before college, so I know about outsourcing pretty well. My job in fact was outsourced from Ontario as most call centers are.
The call center I worked for was hired by Rogers Cable. Why a call center in Nova Scotia I wasn't exactly sure, but the reason we were fed by management was because of our "quality service". I never bought it, it was a few months later that I found out how cheap our center was compared to others. Another factor I think was how relaxed the coastal provinces are compared to Ontario. Listening to all those customers over and over again I came to realize that for some reason people who live in Ontario are really wound tight. I noticed this whenever I spoke to customers who moved there from the maritimes. In fact a number of customers mentioned this fact themselves.
Maybe it wasn't a conscious decision, but seemed to help customers relax a bit themselves.

There were a couple times where that wasn't the case, but that isn't worth getting into.

Of course with outsourcing comes that whole political stink. Support local vendors and such, as if it was was your patriotic duty or something. I personally never cared for that, being as anti - patriotic as I am. What I get worried about is the balance of power that comes from outsourcing work. It was mentioned in class that India is ahead of the curve by taking the jobs North Americans don't want. Which makes sense, but it also means India and even China are going to be bigger driving forces in world economics than the western world. Which may cause trouble down the road, though that is assuming any trouble occurs at all.

Point is, I found it surprisingly interesting this time. A pity it was the last one we are going to discuss, things only just started to get really good.

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