Outsourcing in non-developed supplier markets: a lean thinking approach

The benefits organisations can gain from outsourcing include cost savings and higher levels of innovation. On the other hand, outsourcing drawbacks include potential operations and performance issues such as capability and capacity problems. Some large organisations are pursuing the practice of outsourcing, more specifically, targeting global outsourcing from developing and low-wage countries. However, the perception of expected cost saving benefits when outsourcing to low-wage countries does not always reflect reality. A number of companies have failed to achieve the expected cost savings in sourcing from low-wage countries due to operational-level capability. The objective of this study is to develop an extended evaluation method that takes into account operational-level influence factors, in addition to the procurement factors, in the context of non-developed supplier markets. Our extended evaluation method of potential suppliers addressed the paradigm of ‘standard industry recipes’, by encompassing operational-level influence factors and integrating supplier value stream analysis into the evaluation and selection process of outsourcing. A survey was distributed to 369 international manufacturers. Operational levels were categorised into seven latent constructs: Customer Service/Sales, Purchasing, Production Planning and Control, Manufacturing Engineering, Shop Floor and Quality Control, Receiving and Shipping. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) confirmed the seven constructs, but measuring items were reduced from 39 to 23 significant observed measuring items, compromising the supplier selection framework. Our proposed framework will help practitioners make better informed decisions in outsourcing from non-developed supplier markets.