By outsourcing services, we can keep our real value-add, the metal finishing, the production, at home. How?
Reduce processes to the digital level
Anything that can be reduced to 1’s and 0’s and sent through fiber can be outsourced. This includes things like...
Accounting
Billing, payroll, any kind of paperwork can potentially be outsourced. It is a case of efficiently converting it to digital form, which may mean revamping internal processes. Often, this brings unforeseen efficiencies in its own right.
Design/Engineering
This kind of work can be very expensive, but increasingly sophisticated software coupled with trained Indian engineers can deliver services equivalent to those found stateside. Certainly this has its own economic ramifications, but we cannot look at it as a zero-sum game. We have to see India as our partner.
Customer Service/Sales
While this may initially seem unrealistic and conjure visions of the last time you called your credit card company, there may be possibilities. Metal finishing is specialized enough to demand top-tier people with strong technical backgrounds—and they would be serving in a support function, not taking the place of your whole technical team.