One company that relied on outsourcing to create value for itself is
Apple. According to Griffin (2015), Apple decided from the beginning
that they wanted to focus on innovations in design. Griffin (2015)
states that companies who have this as a goal tend to be less
interested in running the actual manufacturing and assembly
operations necessary to build the products they design.
Manufacturing and assembly is cost intensive and has a lower margin
for companies who specialize in it, so Apple needed to outsource this
part of their operation so they could focus on designing. The benefit
that occurred is that Apple was able to get their products
manufactured and assembled for less than they would be able to do
it themselves, giving them a bigger margin. The value created
definitely benefited the company and arguably benefited the
customer, if some of the savings was passed on to the end users.
Ironically, after around 10 years of working with Apple, the company
that they had outsourced to decided that since they were the ones
with the capability to manufacture and assemble these products,
they should do so under their own brand (Griffin, 2015). The
company in question is Samsung and is now Apple's biggest
competitor. So even though Apple created value for a while with
outsourcing, they ultimately created their own biggest competitor in
the smartphone and tablet market.
Griffin, Matthew. (2015). How Apple's Outsourcing Strategy Created
Two Giant Competitors. CIO. Retrieved
from https://www.cio.com/article/247039/how-apples-outsourcing-
strategy-created-two-giant-competitors.html
