Summary
Outsourcing has had a bad press over the years: What with taxpayers being charged for tagging offenders who were dead, the fiasco over security at the London Olympics and the earlier trend for companies to shift operations to call centres in India. Evan Davis and guests look beyond the negative headlines to examine the pros and cons of getting an outside supplier to do some of your work. And they'll find out how outsourcing has enabled the creators of a chilli sauce to expand from the garden shed to the shelves of hundreds of stores.
Guests:
Rupert Soames, CEO, Serco Paul Blantern, CEO, Northampstonshire County Council Kuldip Singh Sehota, CEO Mr Singh's Sauce
Producer: Sally Abrahams.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Evan Davis. Thank you for downloading this program. |
| 0:03.7 | In this edition of the bottom line, we're discussing outsourcing, |
| 0:07.6 | the seemingly unstoppable trend of getting an outside supplier to do some of your work. |
| 0:14.9 | Hello and welcome to the program. |
| 0:17.5 | Now, when you look back over the last few decades, the growth of outsourcing appears to be one of the most important business trends. |
| 0:24.6 | What is outsourcing? It's hiring others to do work rather than doing it in-house. |
| 0:29.6 | Companies have literally disintegrated. They buy services rather than perform them. |
| 0:33.6 | We have plenty of examples here. This program is brought to you by the BBC |
| 0:38.0 | and it's made by BBC staff in-house, but a lot of programmes are made by external providers, |
| 0:43.5 | paid by the BBC, the management of our building, the IT or the catering. These services are all |
| 0:48.9 | bought in and it wasn't always like that. Well, for many, outsourcing is simply another word for cost-cutting |
| 0:56.1 | job losses and overseas call centres, but there must be some rationale for it to be so ubiquitous in |
| 1:02.7 | business. So let's examine the pros and cont with my three guests who each have their own |
| 1:07.5 | experiences of outsourcing, and let's meet them. And first up is Rupert Soames, who's chief executive of Serco, |
| 1:14.3 | one of the biggest outsourcing companies in the UK and indeed in the world. |
| 1:19.1 | Rupert, just tell us the range of services Circo provides. |
| 1:22.2 | We are specialist providers of public services. |
| 1:25.5 | So we call ourselves a business to government business, |
| 1:28.2 | and we concentrate on health, justice and immigration, defence, citizen services and transport. |
| 1:34.4 | And we do that in North America, the UK, Europe, Middle East and Australian New Zealand. |
| 1:40.5 | So name some of the facilities in this country that you run? |
| 1:44.0 | In a lot of council areas, |
... |
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