Posted on 08/24/2009 10:55:09 AM PDT by pissant
Farouk Shami, a Palestinian-born hairdresser who built a $1 billion manufacturing company around a popular line of hair irons, is moving all of his production of hand-held appliances from China to a sprawling new factory here.
The move flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says gadgets like this are best made in a low-cost country. But, he says, outsourcing has led to a loss of control over manufacturing and distribution.
"We'll make more money this way -- because we'll have better quality and a better image," says the 66-year-old, who says his company, Farouk Systems Inc., spends about $500,000 a month fighting counterfeits, most of which he says originate in China. The company collects the fake products and tracks the source, and then brings action in China to shut down illegal producers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Shami is making the right move at the wrong time.He should have waited post Obama depression when labor in the USA will be $1.00 a day.
“We’ll make more money this way..”
Not if B-HO can help it.
I look at products to see if they are made in China an buy any alternative if it’s available, not because I don’t like China but because without fail the product made in China is cheap and shoddily constructed. Here’s hoping more businesses start thinking this way.
I agree with the shoddy. But I also hate commies.
I’ll pay more for his product just to support his decision to bring jobs back to America. I’ll pay double just because it’s manufactured in Texas. Screw Walmart on this one.
In my business, I have had to deal with “outsourced” team members for well over a decade. But it is becoming a serious Achilles heal for projects. What’s more, it has caused VERY bad work and bad requirements realization.
The reason is that the English spoken by these people can sometimes be so bad that people just start ignoring what they say, even though it might be critical. To be clear, some of these people are really sharp, but when there is a serious communication breakdown, anything can happen - and does.
People don’t realize that a person that costs half as much can actually cost the company twice as much in bad work being done, often not by that person but by those who didn’t fully understand what that person was communicated. That plus the extra time tacked onto a project just for communication can really make this a two steps forward, four steps back sort of thing.
Smart move, the taxes are low here in Texas, we hate unions and don’t put up with anything from them here, and the cost of living is very low.
Counterfeit parts from China have also made their way into the aircraft industry. That is scary. The counterfits do not have the specs of the real item.
Wow....it takes a Palestinian to act like a real American! Must be driving the Free Trader Globalists nuts!
Thank you Farouk....thank you for creating jobs in America. Now if we can just get some of the US born to re-invest in America and stop being Liberal Globalists so in love with Communist China.
I’ve often wondered how much computer & electronics manufacturers are ‘saving’ by outsourcing their tech support to overseas companies who aren’t really particular about the english communication skills of their employees. If I as a consumer have to keep calling with the hope of eventually scoring a technician who will understand me & whom I can understand in order to get my problem solved, are these companies really saving much? Even though they’re indeed saving on $/hr per employee, if I could have gotten the problem solved with somebody who didn’t have a language barrier in 5 minutes instead of spending hours on multiple calls just trying to compensate for that language barrier, wouldn’t that be more cost efficient for them?
I just double-checked, but this guy was a Miss Universe judge last night, and the winner got some of his hair care appliances, IIRC.
Nice gig if you can get it, I reckon.
LOL, indeed. :)
On topic, good for him to bring jobs to the U.S.
It is good news. I hope it is a trend.
parsy, who don’t want to buy Chinese stuff all the time
My dad dumped Dell because of that.
And yes. I was on a call with two programmers and we could not communicate the problem in TWO one hour phone meetings. I met with one of the programmers in a conference room with a white board and we clarified the problem AND came up with a solution in 10 minutes.
I kid you not.
Or, the English might not be bad in any grammatical or semantic sense, but it fails to communicate because of the lack of shared cultural context. You don't realize how much the meaning of a communication depends on its unspoken context until you receive one without any.
I do too. Depending on what you're buying, it can be very difficult, if not downright impossible, to find USA made counterparts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.