I just found out that the corporation behind my biggest and most lucrative clients is losing money, and therefore has decided to go through the company and induce massive layoffs top-to-bottom, including long standing art directors who have been with the company for 15-20+ years.
... Thing is, the reason they are losing money is not because of poor growth, or fuel cost, or anything you may suspect in this treacherous Bush economy; but rather, it seems they are losing money because of something their greedy little greedsters thought was a good idea since Bush opened the door to the devaluation of the American worker. I'm, of course, speaking of outsourcing.
Below...
A few years back, this company decided to abandon the centuries tested institution of American printing for the cheap labor of India and China to fulfill their massive publishing needs. What these folks failed to account for are the huge benefits to relying on American printers and the astronomical pitfalls of outsourcing this work to save money on production costs:
When you're in an office in the US and you have winged your trademarked assets across the sea, there is no way you can monitor the process. You cannot interact with your printer after your first run. You cannot resolve microscopic problems at a moment's pace. There is no 'body' behind the work you have requested. Further, the 12+ hour time difference ensures that any disaster that may strike will likely occur when you are have submerged into your deepest sleep on any given night.
The potential for disaster is high because, in the emerging Asian market, the centuries of development and expertise you'd get from an American printer are completely absent. All one needs to open for business in these markets is the ability to buy the equipment and develop the rudimentary skill required to run it, which, on a side note, reminds me of this quote from one of my graphic design professors:
Buying Photoshop doesn't make you a designer.
Therefore, buying a 4c press most assuredly does not make you a printer.
Worst of all, you can not monitor your assets, yourself, which means that when some printer in China has finished your 100,000 run, it will more than likely run off 10 to 15 thousand more copies to distribute on the exploding black market, greatly devaluing the retail value of your product without your slightest inkling of an answer for why your product has slumped out of the gate.
This is happening out there, folks. It is a zombified cannibal on the loose in the American workplace. Companies jumping to save a buck wind up losing gobs of money in the long run, and, to save face, they turn around and wipe out slews of workers rather than taking responsibility for their weak profits. This comes full circle when the real assets of the company are now gone: the long tested and dedicated workers that had once upheld the quality and reputation of the company have been replaced with empty desks. Those who remain become immobilized by the massive surplus of work dropped in their laps from the last wave of layoffs. Further, their jobs become acutely more stressful as management places a heavy "more with less" mandate on their shoulders, and further, fills the air with a funny feeling that no one is safe from now on.
As it turns out, the decision to save a buck by outsourcing asset production has really become a decision to take one's money and deposit it in the trash. Tragically, instead of taking the hit full force and bringing it all back where it belongs, companies seem to prefer amputating every appendage at home to make up for their foolishness. I, for one, am of the school of people who consider every appendage connected to me essential.
Meanwhile, in places like Viet Nam, India and China, students and professionals are walking out of the bookstores and to the street (or boat) venders, looking for the cheap bootleg of the title, profiting none but the lucky few who have managed to get some printing equipment and a few extra reams of paper.
Sadly, today, I have found that I have lost one of my favorite clients to this mess. She was an enormously valuable and talented asset to the company where she has worked for many years. Her loss will be felt, but likely felt by the next victim of boardroom greed and incompetence— let go as a result of the board's recklessness in discarding the true asset and continuing the liability of trusting unseen, unreachable, and unscrupulous enigmas to handle their product production.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the Caribbean is also packed with pirated books.
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