Saturday, December 29, 2007

You're outsourcing WHAT?

Businessweek reported that the Miami Herald...

Businessweek says,

The Miami Herald is outsourcing some of its advertising production work to India, the newspaper’s editor said Thursday.

Starting in January, copyediting and design in a weekly section of Broward County community news and other special advertising sections will be outsourced to Mindworks, based in New Delhi.
Assuming that the Herald has done their due diligence, that's another blow against a struggling industry. We're flooded with talented, qualified and experienced (and not-so-talented) layout and design firms in the States. It's a true statement to both the problems facing the newspaper industry and the effective level of global services networking that a rapid-fire production outfit like a major US newspaper would want to, need to and be able to outsource daily production and layout tasks to a firm on the other side of the planet. (Assuming the decision was made on purely business grounds and not a personal vendetta or some other personal agenda.)

It makes a sad day for the US services industry, one in a long, long row of sad days. But to change it, do you really think that design & layout firms in the US will be willing to compete with foreign firms on price? (Yes, there are a slew of business models that still work in the layout & design marketplace, but as each year goes by, they are less and less profitable in the US.)


Happy New Year-
Shawn

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