In-house and Outsource, I first encountered these words back when I was in high school during my economics subject but I didn’t really delved into it until I re encountered it in one of my subject. There have been many discussions regarding the issue of in-housing and outsourcing. Which is better? In-house or outsource?
In-house or in-sourcing refers to the business practice of using a company’s or organization’s own personnel, staff, funds and resources to produce a commodity or service for the company or the organization. This is in contrast to the production being outsourced or contracted out to another company. Outsourcing is the agreement between two companies in which one company would provide its services to the other company that has usually provided in-house. Outsourcing has become a trend that is common in Information Technology and other industries wherein in some cases the entire information management of a company is outsourced.
During one of our sharing we shared about our topic and we happened to mention that our adopted company outsourced their MIS systems from another company which is known as a provider of MIS systems or softwares especially in hotel businesses. We also happened to mention that one of the standards or factor to be considered in choosing softwares is the cost, that’s why our adopted company chose to outsource their softwares rather than in-housing because it has lesser risk because the outsourced system are already tested and proven effective. In-housing on the other hand poses advantages like data confidentiality and still cost effective and considering that the creators are in the company it would easier to manage if there are any flaws. However, it also poses many risks like if one company would dwell making their own system it would take time to make the system, take time to run tests on the system and training their staff to use it and it could also affect their performance. Then the main question popped up, which is better? In-house or outsource?
There we made our stand on outsourcing rather than in-housing because it poses many advantages and lesser risk compared to in-housing. And then another question arise, if it is better to outsource why did our university shifted to in-house which was originally outsource? Some said that in-house is better and some said that outsourcing is better. Our stands were all right however, the decision to outsource or to stay in-house depends on the company’s current situation. In a certain company’s situation it would be better to outsource and in other company it would be better to stay in-house it really matters on the company’s current situation.
However, that subject matter did not end on that session. The other sharers shared their topics, this time the sharers were sharing about how softwares were developed and showed us a diagram or the steps on how softwares were created. There they stated that creating certain software would take a long time or years to establish considering that the system needs to tested and simulated to identify and fix bugs and flaws on the system. Eventually the in-house - outsource issue came up again but this time our facilitator asked us a question, was the decision of the university to shift to from outsourcing to in-house a good decision? The question gave me hanging feel.
I thought that the decision of the school to shift to in-housing was a good decision and that they decided to tap personnel from Institute of Computing department which by the way gives credit to our department and that Institute of Computing staff are no doubt excellent programmers . But what I failed to realize was the time on which the new software was implemented. I mean it was only this past summer when the new system was used. It may be a good decision for me considering the current situation (recession and cost cutting) but I was really curious why our facilitator thought of it otherwise (it really makes you think when almost all of your classmates think of it as a good decision but your facilitator thinks otherwise). There I realized our facilitator has a good point, that shifting to in-house is not a bad decision, it’s just that the university shifted abruptly. I mean, it’s just like using a certain brand of toothpaste for a long time and then somebody asks you to use another brand because it’s cheaper, would you change your brand right away?
In-house or in-sourcing refers to the business practice of using a company’s or organization’s own personnel, staff, funds and resources to produce a commodity or service for the company or the organization. This is in contrast to the production being outsourced or contracted out to another company. Outsourcing is the agreement between two companies in which one company would provide its services to the other company that has usually provided in-house. Outsourcing has become a trend that is common in Information Technology and other industries wherein in some cases the entire information management of a company is outsourced.
During one of our sharing we shared about our topic and we happened to mention that our adopted company outsourced their MIS systems from another company which is known as a provider of MIS systems or softwares especially in hotel businesses. We also happened to mention that one of the standards or factor to be considered in choosing softwares is the cost, that’s why our adopted company chose to outsource their softwares rather than in-housing because it has lesser risk because the outsourced system are already tested and proven effective. In-housing on the other hand poses advantages like data confidentiality and still cost effective and considering that the creators are in the company it would easier to manage if there are any flaws. However, it also poses many risks like if one company would dwell making their own system it would take time to make the system, take time to run tests on the system and training their staff to use it and it could also affect their performance. Then the main question popped up, which is better? In-house or outsource?
There we made our stand on outsourcing rather than in-housing because it poses many advantages and lesser risk compared to in-housing. And then another question arise, if it is better to outsource why did our university shifted to in-house which was originally outsource? Some said that in-house is better and some said that outsourcing is better. Our stands were all right however, the decision to outsource or to stay in-house depends on the company’s current situation. In a certain company’s situation it would be better to outsource and in other company it would be better to stay in-house it really matters on the company’s current situation.
However, that subject matter did not end on that session. The other sharers shared their topics, this time the sharers were sharing about how softwares were developed and showed us a diagram or the steps on how softwares were created. There they stated that creating certain software would take a long time or years to establish considering that the system needs to tested and simulated to identify and fix bugs and flaws on the system. Eventually the in-house - outsource issue came up again but this time our facilitator asked us a question, was the decision of the university to shift to from outsourcing to in-house a good decision? The question gave me hanging feel.
I thought that the decision of the school to shift to in-housing was a good decision and that they decided to tap personnel from Institute of Computing department which by the way gives credit to our department and that Institute of Computing staff are no doubt excellent programmers . But what I failed to realize was the time on which the new software was implemented. I mean it was only this past summer when the new system was used. It may be a good decision for me considering the current situation (recession and cost cutting) but I was really curious why our facilitator thought of it otherwise (it really makes you think when almost all of your classmates think of it as a good decision but your facilitator thinks otherwise). There I realized our facilitator has a good point, that shifting to in-house is not a bad decision, it’s just that the university shifted abruptly. I mean, it’s just like using a certain brand of toothpaste for a long time and then somebody asks you to use another brand because it’s cheaper, would you change your brand right away?
1 comment:
lo gadz...hmmm 'deep' thoughts.
In-house versus outsource..
quite confusing sometimes coz i always relate it to open-source versus proprietary...haiz.
Regarding the university's decision to shift from outsourcing to in-house, I think it is just okay to shift considering the main concern which is COST. In addition, if a company could give out...[tobe continued]
Post a Comment