SOLVED

21) TransCorp is a medium-sized IT firm that has outsourced its customer-service processes to the Philippines for the last two years. Which of the following statements, if true, would most weaken the decision to continue outsourcing? A) Most firms in the Philippines have been accused of poor working conditions. B) The firm’s prime competitor recently withdrew its outsourcing process. C) Customers’ complaints about the quality of service have risen dramatically over the past two years. D) According to a company survey, most employees feel that they require extensive training. E) The value of the company’s stock recently fell by 5 percent in the New York Stock Exchange. 22) ________ refers to the delegation of a company’s logistics operations to a subcontractor that specializes in that operation. A) Outsourcing B) In-forming C) Offshoring D) In-sourcing E) Licensing 23) Which of the following allows individuals to utilize powerful search engines on the Internet to build their “own personal supply chain of information, knowledge, and entertainment”? A) offshoring B) in-forming C) in-sourcing D) exporting E) outsourcing 24) Thomas L. Friedman uses the term “the steroids” to refer to technologies ________. A) that make different forms of collaboration digital, mobile, virtual, and personal B) that tightly integrate retailers, their suppliers, and their customers C) that allow firms to outsource business processes on a global scale D) that allow users to add, remove, or edit content from Web sites E) that allow individuals to build their own personal supply chain of information and entertainment 25) Outsourcing has seen a huge increase because of the ________. A) increase in decentralization B) decrease in transportation costs C) increase in advertising costs D) decrease in telecommunication costs E) increase in the cost of raw materials 26) ________ is the use of locations closer to the home country in terms of geographical, political, linguistic, economic, or cultural distance. A) In-forming B) Nearshoring C) Onshoring D) In-sourcing E) Outsourcing 27) U.S. companies move work from India back to Mexico or British Columbia in order to address some of the challenges associated with overseas destinations. This is an example of ________. A) in-sourcing B) outsourcing C) in-forming D) onshoring E) nearshoring 28) Which of the following is as an example of nearshoring? A) British Airways moves customer relations and passenger revenue accounting to India. B) Parts of Airbus and Boeing airplanes are designed and engineered in Moscow, Russia. C) McKinsey sets up a global research division in India. D) Worldwide banking group HSBC moves back-office operations to India. E) T-Mobile moves part of its content development process from India to the Czech Republic. 29) Aortego, a U.S.-based automobile company, has a manufacturing plant in India and has been able to reduce its manufacturing costs significantly because of the country’s highly-skilled yet low cost labor. However, Aortego is forced to shift its plant from India to Canada because of the introduction of a new law which mandates that all companies collaborate with Indian companies before entering into the country. Which of the following best explains Aortego’s shift from India to Canada? A) offshoring B) outsourcing C) in-forming D) nearshoring E) in-sourcing 30) According to Nicholas Carr, cloud computing may contribute to the decline in outsourcing. Which of the following justifies this statement? A) An IT outsourcer’s business is built around managing complex internal systems. A shift to a simpler cloud-based IT infrastructure should reduce the need for outsourcers. B) Outsourcing is based on the availability of cheap labor; these workers will not be able to work on complex cloud-based IT infrastructures, thereby contributing to the decline in outsourcing. C) Cloud computing is customized in each country, thus making it impossible to outsource. D) Cloud computing is standardized in all countries, reducing the need for outsourcing. E) An IT outsourcer’s business is built around managing simple internal systems. A shift to a complex cloud-based IT infrastructure would discourage outsourcing.