Outsource Customer Support

Offshore customer support can be defined as relocation of business processes to a lower cost location, usually overseas. Offshore customer support can be seen in the context of either production off-shoring or services off-shoring. After its accession to the WTO, China emerged as a prominent destination for production off-shoring. After technical progress in telecommunications improved the possibilities of trade in services, India is a country leading in this domain.

Offshore customer support is defined as the movement of a business process done at a local company to a foreign country, regardless of whether the work done in the foreign country is still performed by the local company or a third-party. Typically, work is moved due to a lower cost of operations in the foreign location. Offshore customer support is sometimes contrasted with outsourcing services or offshore outsourcing.

offshore customer support which implies relocation of business processes to (typically) lower cost foreign locations, but in close geographical proximity (e.g. shifting US bases business processes to Canada/Mexico). In-shoring, which means picking services within a country; and best shoring, picking the "best shore" based on various criteria. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) refers to outsourcing arrangements when entire business functions (such as IT, Customer Service, etc) are outsource.

Offshore customer support of established products involves relocation of physical manufacturing processes to a lower-cost destination. Examples of production off-shoring include the manufacture of electronic components in Taiwan, production of apparel, toys, and consumer goods in China, etc.

Product design, and the research and development process that leads to new products, may or may not be associated with offshore customer support. Generally, research and development to improve products and create new reference designs requires a skill set that is harder to obtain in regions with cheap labor. For this reason, in many cases only the manufacturing will be off-shored by a company wishing to reduce costs.

As such, policies that affect research and development, such how strong a country's patent system is, may affect offshore customer support. Strong patent systems mitigate the danger of domestic companies sending patentable work offshore, thereby increasing the off-shoring of high-wage jobs. Conversely, weak patent systems threaten domestic companies performing patentable work overseas since foreign vendors or workers could steal their ideas without any legal recourse, thereby decreasing off-shoring for fear of theft.

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