Andreas Birkholz

Offshoring of German high-tech IT jobs to low-wage countries Andreas Birkholz

Master's Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 60 points = 2,5 (B), Anglia Ruskin University (Ashcroft International Business School), course: Master Thesis, 43 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: Abstract, Introduction to offshoring, literature review, key terms, prerequisites, Why offshoring?, opportunities and threads, Where to locate?, Choosing a vendor, future challenges, primary data collection by a questionnaire among BITKOM members (German IT companies), evaluation of secondary data sources (other studies), Case Study: Alcatel, Impact on German IT industry, quality management, project management, HR management, conclusions, recommandations for German IT companies incl. 20 figures , abstract: The relocation of jobs to low-wage countries (offshoring) has been a widely used approach of European companies in search of competitive advantage during the recent decades. Whereas in the past production and manufacturing were affected, now the services industry starts to use this option. IT and telecommunications are among the most important services branches of the Western European economies today. Offshoring is becoming a macro-economic problem in these countries because a lot of jobs will be lost. This dissertation researches the impact of offshoring on the German IT industry. Furthermore it points out the consequences for project management, quality assurance and human resources management. It highlights the pros and cons for the offshoring companies as well as the concerned employees. This research starts with a detailed literature review that clarifies important key terms and outlines the key findings of other authors. After that the methodology chapter describes the theoretical framework of this dissertation. Within the scope of this research a survey was conducted among 335 German IT companies. As the surveyed companies are primarily small and medium-sized ent