Can global growth be advanced when ‘strategic collaboration’ and ‘outsourcing’ becomes a dirty word in the U.S. economy?
Can a truly global and competitive U.S. tech worker be developed when isolated from international competition?
Will outsourcing hurt the thriving U.S. Tech Industry and the U.S. Tech Worker in the long-term?
What do you say to a high school student interested in the tech industry? Do you warn him off against the industry due to ‘outsourcing’ or do you motivate him to develop his critical thinking, collaborative skills, creativity, and a global view?
In choosing a business or profession, you need to do something that you love and where your talent lies.
This truth is more real in the tech industry where intense competition and strategic collaboration takes place in the global arena.
The U.S. tech industry is characterized by innovation, globalization of development of products and services, providing value to global customers, and attractive revenues (when you have the ‘hot product & skills’).
At the same time, economic insecurity is real for both I.T. employees and I.T. companies.
I.T. companies have also lost markets and even employees due to competition (Dell lost to Gateway in the PC market in the mid 90s; and Apple computers lost to Microsoft in the early 90s). However, both companies have overcome their setbacks by increasing their competitiveness and through innovation.
And today, it’s interesting to note that the U.S. tech companies have reported better-than-expected earnings in this economic recession. No government bail-out was asked.
More I.T. companies are successful because they have learned to become more responsive to their customers and competition. Most of their success is also due to revolutionary thinking that their customers love: Michael Dell’s I.T. logistics innovation and Steve Job’s product innovations. (Both are extremely competitive against each other.)
And in 2008, the Ernst and Young award for Entrepreneur of the Year went to Red Hat’s Matthew Szulik for his “world changing innovative thinking”. He competed in the enterprise computing market, dominated by big companies by offering businesses “freedom to design software and make rapid innovation possible”.
Open instead of proprietary. Collaborative instead of closed. Nobody thought that this model would be profitable a decade ago.
Innovative thinking and world changing creativity within the context of intense competition– is what the U.S. as a country and culture is most known for and its citizens take pride in.
Will we want to change this?
All in all, successful tech companies have critical operations both in the U.S. and abroad.
Successful U.S. tech companies are still re-investing in the U.S. and forming alliances with U.S. universities. (You can also read, “The Dubuque Solution: IBM finds many virtues poised in a city at the juncture of three states”.)
All of these successful tech companies have global strategic partnerships (or outsource parts of the development of their products and services abroad.)
But can the U.S. tech industry survive and continue to innovate and attain success within an environment of protectionism?
Category: News, Outsourcing Tips