Generic Benchmarking
Running head: GENERIC BENCHMARKING
Generic Benchmarking: Outsourcing
Freescale Semiconductor and General Motors Corporation
University of Phoenix
Freescale Semiconductor
One of the concepts facing Global Communications is to communicate effectively to the union and employees, the decision to close some of their technical call centers by outsourcing to India and Ireland. By looking at how Freescale Semiconductor handled similar situations, we can get an idea of the process and its effect a decision of this type has on those involved.
Freescale Semiconductor is a world leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale Semiconductor was spun off by Motorola in 2004. Since its inception, Freescale Semiconductor has outsourced many aspects of its operation to overseas countries. Of the seven manufacturing plants, only two are in the United States. The rest are in Europe and the Far East as well as most of their technical support call centers. (Freescale, 2007)
Just over a year ago, Freescale announced it would be moving some of the software development teams to Guadalajara, Mexico. At that time, they could hire three people in Mexico for every one here in the United States. The members of the teams being moved were also told they would be training their replacements. Once the training was completed, those employees who were not shifted to another area would be terminated.
I interviewed one of the employees, Becky Courson, who would be training her replacement, for her perspective. Ms. Courson has been with Freescale/Motorola for 19 years, surviving numerous lay-offs. During the meeting where the outsourcing was discussed, the senior manager was very direct about the reasons. They would be able to hire more people for the same money. In addition, they chose...
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