Outsourcing is as controversial as ever in today's globalized world. But for all the noise about it in the media, whether reflecting the perspectives of labor, business, consultants, academics, employees, or protestors, there is far more emotion surrounding the benefits and drawbacks of the trend than there is common sense. Not only are these messages from different constituents polarizing, they are also confusing because they muddy the waters regarding corporate performance. Buffington clarifies the role of outsourcing in business today so that Americans can focus on something that really matters―real increases in productivity and competitiveness in a global economy. In most cases, he contends, neither outsourcing nor its close cousin, offshoring, are effective as a means to their intended end. Moreover, he points out, Americans focus a lot of negative energy on offshoring, not realizing that domestic outsourcing might be more harmful to our economy in the long run. Corporations lack awareness of this distinction, according to Buffington, and therefore they don't know which should be implemented in what circumstances. That ignorance is not only an obstacle for any company seeking to implement a successful outsourcing strategy, but it is also a dire threat to the long-term growth of the American economy.
Buffington demonstrates that outsourcing often functions as an easy out for corporations that are reluctant to look instead at the root causes of their problems, whether low productivity, lack of innovation, or an unwillingness to invest in marketing, promotion, and sales. The reason that corporations aren't focusing on these core issues has a historical element as much as an evolutionary one within a global economy; the divisions today between workers and management are as sharp as they were back in the early 20th century, Buffington argues. But as much as we have to learn from the past about the impact of worker/management relations on worker productivity, we have even more to learn about all aspects of the productivity puzzle. Corporate productivity, or lack thereof, drives the success or failure of outsourcing or offshoring more than the act itself, according to Buffington. This book challenges business leaders to find their productivity and only then to make outsourcing decisions. This approach will work for corporations, consulting firms, outsourcers, and in the end, customers themselves. A more productive, worker-manager friendly business environment will lead to greater U.S. productivity, and therefore, more effective outsourcing/offshoring decisions.

An Easy Out: Corporate America's Addiction to Outsourcing

Business & Money

Buffington, Jack

Industries

Praeger

This book states the harsh truth: that despite best intentions, our current environmental practices are doing more harm than good, and that the solution lies in creating supply chains of the future that design, produce, consume, and reuse materials in a manner that is balanced economically and environmentally.
One billion beverage containers are used on a daily basis in the United States, with at least 600 million of them ending up in landfills. Even the 400 million that are recycled―at a great cost―are not accomplishing the task of helping the environment. This economic and environmental catastrophe cannot be solved by recycling programs. From his experience as a leader in the American consumer beverage industry and a researcher in Sweden, author Jack Buffington has developed a transformational solution that seeks to not just mitigate the environmental damage but jumpstart the economy while actually achieving zero waste.
The Recycling Myth tells the story of how our current environmental practices are unintentionally doing more harm than good and how we need to create a radically different supply chain of the future that must, as best as possible, copy the natural system of growth, decay, and regrowth, and discontinue a disastrous pattern of material design and use. Backed by irrefutable evidence, the book destroys our comfortable notions of the recycling status quo; explains why recycling will never work in the United States, despite decades of attempts; and introduces a new system that will actually work―without asking consumers to consume less.
 • Supplies an informed perspective from a leader in the consumer beverage industry at one of the world's largest producers of packaged beverages and a researcher in Sweden in the fields of environmental science and supply chain logistics
• Presents a bold counterargument to the idea that recycling and sustainability programs are inherently beneficial and introduces a new system that will benefit both our environment and economy―without asking consumers to consume less
• Explains why recycling and sustainability programs are ineffective because they focus solely on doing less harm rather than improving both the economy and the environment

The Recycling Myth: Disruptive Innovation to Improve the Environment

Economics

Shows why plastics, in aggregate, have become a toxin to humans, wildlife, and the planet, and proposes novel solutions that involve neither traditional recycling nor giving up plastic.
"Plastics!" In the 50 years since Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate was instructed that this was the career field of the future, we have not been able to escape this ubiquitous but poorly understood material. Author Jack Buffington argues that the plastics crisis is careening toward a tipping point from which there will be no return. There is still time, however, to do something about this crisis if we have the imagination and the will to move away from the failed policies of the past. 
This book is the first to propose a new model for linking our synthetic world to the natural one, rather than seeking to treat them as separate entities. The key is supply chain innovation. Buffington presents five market-based solutions based on this principle that will allow consumers to continue to use plastic, which has in many ways enabled our way of life. Alongside these proposed solutions, he also addresses the proliferation of plastic as we know it―growth that, if left unchecked, will lead to a "planetary crisis," according to the United Nations―and considers how the material itself might be adapted for a sustainable future.
 • Provides a realistic solution for our use of plastic: not to eliminate it, but to innovate it
• Views plastic not only as a known environmental and health hazard but as a material critical to our future and therefore worth revising for future use
• Explains what we must do―and by when―in order to be able to keep using plastic without harming the planet or our health
• Shows the links between the environmental, toxicological, and socioeconomic challenges in our use of plastic, and how these dangers can be remedied by supply chain innovation
• Introduces two significant disruptive innovations that if implemented, will save us from the growing problem posed by synthetics

Peak Plastic: The Rise or Fall of Our Synthetic World

Environmental sustainability policy has failed due to focusing on symptoms, such as CO2 emissions, rather than the root cause problems of the limitations of human systems and global poverty. Through significant research and a detailed road-map for how to achieve sustainability by 2050, Buffington provides a realistic, game changing path forward.

Environmental Innovation: An Action Plan for Saving the Economy and the Planet by 2050

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

An original vision for using technology to transform supply chains into value chains in order to revitalize American communities\nWhen the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays became the new norm. Contrary to public perception, the pandemic strain did not break the current system of supply chains; it merely exposed weaknesses and fault lines that were decades in the making, and which were already acutely felt in deindustrialized cities and depopulated rural towns throughout the United States.\nReinventing the Supply Chain explores the historical role of supply chains in the global economy, outlines where the system went wrong and what needs to be done to fix it, and demonstrates how a retooled supply chain can lead to the revitalization of American communities. Jack Buffington proposes a transformation of the global supply chain system into a community-based value chain, led by the communities themselves and driven by digital platforms for raising capital and blockchain technology.\nBuffington proposes new solutions to problems that have been decades in the making. With clear analysis and profound insight, Buffington provides a clear roadmap to a more durable and efficient system.

Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America

Reference

Georgetown University Press

This volume models a 21st century supply chain: one that uses technology that leads to the power of the individual, not larger organizations. Author Jack Buffington explains how in the near future, each of us will be a “prosumer” in a peer-based economy of micro-level manufacturing with little waste and infinite customization. There are two primary schools of thought in regard to the world economy of the future; from one side is a belief that economic growth can continue in perpetuity, driven upon a cheap and plentiful energy supply. From the other point of view is a perspective that economic growth will soon end has due to a lack of cheap and plentiful oil, too much financial debt, and a damaged environment that cannot withstand more growth. Frictionless Markets proposes a third way: a 21st century model based upon an economic calculus that does assume that fossil fuels are rapidly depleting and the environment is being damaged, but does not assume that this means an end to growth, but rather, a beginning of opportunities. Frictionless Markets tells the story of why and how frictionless markets will exist by the year 2030. Dr. Jack Buffington is both a supply chain professional for one of the largest consumer products companies in the world, and a researcher in biotechnology and supply chain at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Frictionless Markets: The 21st Century Supply Chain

Springer

This volume models a 21st century supply chain: one that uses technology that leads to the power of the individual, not larger organizations. Author Jack Buffington explains how in the near future, each of us will be a “prosumer” in a peer-based economy of micro-level manufacturing with little waste and infinite customization.
There are two primary schools of thought in regard to the world economy of the future; from one side is a belief that economic growth can continue in perpetuity, driven upon a cheap and plentiful energy supply. From the other point of view is a perspective that economic growth will soon end has due to a lack of cheap and plentiful oil, too much financial debt, and a damaged environment that cannot withstand more growth. Frictionless Markets proposes a third way: a 21st century model based upon an economic calculus that does assume that fossil fuels are rapidly depleting and the environment is being damaged, but does not assume that this means an end to growth, but rather, a beginning of opportunities. Frictionless Markets tells the story of why and how frictionless markets will exist by the year 2030.
Dr. Jack Buffington is both a supply chain professional for one of the largest consumer products companies in the world, and a researcher in biotechnology and supply chain at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

International

Ascent Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Buffington, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Buffington, Jack

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Buffington, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

An Easy Out: Corporate America's Addiction to Outsourcing

The Recycling Myth: Disruptive Innovation to Improve the Environment

Peak Plastic: The Rise or Fall of Our Synthetic World

Environmental Innovation: An Action Plan for Saving the Economy and the Planet by 2050

Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America

Frictionless Markets: The 21st Century Supply Chain

Frictionless Markets: The 21st Century Supply Chain

Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America