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Outsourced - Forum
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Outsourced
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| Lunow | Date: Saturday, 2011-11-19, 7:54 PM | Message # 1 |
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| When his department is outsourced to India, customer call center manager Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton) heads to Mumbai to train his successor (Asif Basra), and amusing culture clashes ensue as Anderson tries to explain American business practices to the befuddled new employees. In the process, he learns important lessons about globalization -- and life. Ayesha Dharker and Matt Smith also star in director John Jeffcoat's cross-cultural comedy. - from Netflix
This is not a documentary. It is a romantic comedy. I used to show it after the AP exam to illustrate many of the concepts we study this year. NBC took the concept of the movie and turned it into a sit-com. You might have seen the sit-com and might not appreciate the novelty of the movie. If you have not seen the sit-com I recommend this. It is amusing and will cover some of the themes we will discuss this year.
The premise of the movie is that an American company wants to make more money by shutting down its office in the USA and moving the telephone-based operation to India. This fits neatly into our Unit 6 (Economic Geography) where we study the impact of globalization on labor patterns around the world. Many American companies have shut their offices here and opened offices in countries where the workers will work for a fraction of the pay that American workers require. The hero in this story works in the American office that gets closed and is shipped off to India to train the people who will be taking his job. Ironically, the success of the Indian branch will lead to... (no spoiler alert).
While the context of the movie does address economic geography, the movie is based on a series of cultural misunderstanding between the American businessman and the people of India. While the jokes are not very sophisticated, the movie is pleasant enough and does show some of the culture shock that people face when they are in a foreign culture. The movie does illustrate some aspects of Indian society that are interesting.
On the whole, students in the past really enjoyed this movie (maybe because it was not a documentary). Watch it.
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| isyortiz21 | Date: Monday, 2015-04-06, 0:03 AM | Message # 2 |
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| Isabel Ortiz
Period 5
AP HUG
4-5-15
The romantic comedy titled, "Outsourced," was directed by John Jeffcoat in 2006 and features Josh Hamilton, Matt Smith, Rebecca Hazlewood, and Rudolf Rodrigues. The movie begins in an America office for "Western Novelty" with the protagonist soon learning that the company was restructuring by offshoring the department. This meant that any American job done on phone or online was going over seas to save money. So the protagonist, manager of fullfillment, was sent to India to trainthe new members or else his stocks, pension, medical insurance, benefits, and job would have been lost. The company moved to India because they would be paying $11,000 per member a year so it would be like paying 8 heads for the price of one.
The protagonist, Tod Anderson, was sent to Gharpur, India, a place of many small taxis, crowded trains, busy streets, temples, and full of culture. Differences between Americans and Indians is that they have arranged marriages, social classes, hvae kids younger, have many animals, eat only with their right, have Hinduism, live with their parents, and are cultural poor. Something very interesting was that they had to build their own office due to the real estate being busy in bigger cities. Also the company the workers working at night in order for the calls to be answered with the American time zone during the day.Additionally, the company got many complaints due to cultural differences of the callers, so the workers had to take American cultural classes. Fun fact was that these Indian workers are native English speakers because it is an official language of their government. Furthermore, many jobs today in consumer services are being done by Indians and not only caller services. The company improved their time to under 6 minutes by giving incentives, specialized workplace, cloths preference, and listening to worker feedback.
Near the end of the movie, the company outsourced their jobs again but this time from India to China. Now the company would save money by paying 20 heads for the price of one. The Indian workers were fine with this because they were trained to get jobs in many other companies. By the end, they all got what they wanted and were very satisfied with their lives. In total, this was an enjoyable movie that was very informative on outsourcing and Indian culture.
P.S. My favorite part was when Asha told the unhappy consumer that their was a similar product on the market for $212 more... of course the customer bought the cheaper product
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| Roger | Date: Wednesday, 2015-04-08, 4:52 PM | Message # 3 |
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| Roger Nguyen P.6
"Outsourced" is a romantic comedy following life of Todd Anderson, whose job was moved overseas to cut costs. While there, faces many problems, mainly training the call center, in which he overcomes by adapting to the culture.
This movie, conceptually, was very pleasing. I enjoyed the the element of culture shock. This movie really opened my eyes on how materialistic American culture is and pretty much reinforced my disgust in contemporary popular culture.
The plot itself could have been a bit more developed, but it was still enjoyable. The romance aspect was too predictable and was awkwardly executed. Many cliches could have easily been avoided. There were many minor annoyances, but the movie was still enjoyable.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie mostly because it conveyed the theme of culture shock and was very informative while still being entertaining. It wasn't the typical "yell facts at you" documentary, and was probably the biggest reason why I enjoyed this film. I give this film 8.1/10.
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| vanessam | Date: Sunday, 2015-04-12, 7:07 PM | Message # 4 |
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| Vanessa Macias p.4
The romantic comedy movie, "Outsourced", is about a man named Todd Anderson,who works for a company that moves his job overseas in order to save more money for the company. Todd wasn't very ecstatic about being moved to another country but when told that his benefits would be cut off if he didn't,he agreed to the relocation.
I'd imagine if I was Todd,adapting to a totally new culture would be very frustrating at first. You're so used to the American culture with distinct features like surfers,McDonald's,and reality tv shows,that it's hard to take a 360 turn into a new culture. The movie really opens a perspective of having an open mind on new things and not judging something new right away without really analyzing it.
The movie doesn't just deal with culture but with the business technique of outsourcing. Companies choose to outsource from MDCs to LDCs in order to save more money but still get the job. So it's like paying one U.S. worker is equal to paying 7 Chinese workers. They get more of the provided service for less. The outsourcing in the movie goes from the U.S to India to China in the end.
Overall,I would give the movie a 3.5/5 because I'm a sucker for cheesy things so that's what kept me entertained along with the fact that it was also informative at the same time. At times I was a bit uninterested but it still managed to keep me watching.
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| Ha | Date: Monday, 2015-04-13, 2:17 PM | Message # 5 |
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| Ha Nguyen - Period 6
I remember looking at the title “Outsourced” on the website and thinking there was something a bit peculiar going on. How was this movie categorized under the Culture Unit, yet we clearly studied about the process of “Outsourcing” in our Industrialization Unit? I never gave much thoughts about it, and I chose the movie because it was, fortunately, one of the few I could easily find on Netflix. Truth to be told, I thought I would be bored out of tears when I first clicked on it. I never expected to get the deep insight into the Indian culture that “Outsourced” showcased. Most of the time when we study about India being an LDC, we were merely shoving a bunch of facts into our brains. We never really connected with what we were learning as much. I really liked how the movie offered us an insight into the daily lives of Indian people--their habits, routines, taboos, etc. All of us viewers were in the same boat as Todd, learning new things as the movie moves along. I’ve always known that the people of India never enjoyed the same luxury as we have here in the United States, however, this never hit me with much impact until I saw the scene where Todd’s neighbor and his family offered him a meal with them. The broken dishes, the meager portion of rice, the single egg, and the expression on the old lady’s face actually almost brought tears to my eyes. There were a lot of comedic and lighthearted scenes in the movie, but that single scene was my absolute favorite. Although the Indian culture and the way industries work were fantastically portrayed, I thought that the romantic element in the movie was not nearly executed as well. The entire romance between Todd and Ahsaa was almost way too cliche and predictable. It seemed like something haphazardly stuck into the movie rather than the main aspect of the plot itself. I actually had more fun watching the friendship between Todd and Puro, who was truly one of the best comic relief characters I’ve ever seen. It was much more entertaining, and Puro’s personality was much more bubbly, fun, and lighthearted. Nevertheless, although the romance of this romantic comedy was slightly underdeveloped, I still enjoyed the movie a lot overall. It’s definitely an 8/10. “Outsourcing” gives me the same insight that some documentaries could have, but it’s definitely a lot more fun to watch.
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| christinele1956 | Date: Sunday, 2016-04-17, 10:33 PM | Message # 6 |
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| Christine Le
Period 2
In this movie, Todd who works at Western Novelty call center in the US, is sent to India to train a new manager who will soon be taking his job. This man is named Puro. The company outsourced because it is much cheaper, compared to the US. The entire department is being offshored. Any job that can be done on the phone or online is going overseas. The language they speak in India is Hindi which is a part of the indo-iranian branch. There were many cultural misunderstandings throughout the movie, for example, Todd was eating with his left hand, which is disgusting to indians because the left hand is used to wipe your butt. Therefore, indians eat with their right hand. Another one, has to do with the Hindu religion. Todd talked about cow branding and eating beef in front of everyone at the call center, not knowing that in the hindu religion, they do not eat cow. This movie also shows globalization of popular culture, seen with the Mcdonalds in India. Although the call center is located in India, the products are made in China. Companies have moved from MDC's to LDC's. The wages in LDC's are cheaper. The main purpose of Todd being in India was to train workers and get the MPI down to six. Along the way, he falls in love with Asha, one of the workers. He later finds out the she was in an arranged marriage, so they had a fling. In the end, his boss tell them that they are firing everyone and are outsourcing to china, because it's cheaper than India.
Overall, I give this movie a 10/10. I liked the light humor in it. It also showed Indias culture by showing the holiday, Holi, a day in which people throw powdered colors onto each other to welcome the new season. This movie also showed a bit of the religion of Hinduism, by showing the god Kali, the god of destruction. We get insight on India's culture, and we also get a look into a very real problem happening in our world today, which is outsourcing. Many people in America are losing their jobs to this.
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| 21atrinh2 | Date: Tuesday, 2018-01-02, 4:03 PM | Message # 7 |
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| Amy Trinh
Period 4
Directed by John Jeffcoat, "Outsourced" is an amusing, romantic comedy that revolves around Todd Anderson's experience with adapting to Indian culture following when his job at Western Novelty has been outsourced. Throughout the movie, several elements can be found that relate to what we have focused on in our AP Hug units, among them being the globalization of popular culture, differences between MDC's and LDC's, along with India's cultural values. Once learning that his job has been outsourced, or relocated to India, an LDC, for a more inexpensive cost, Todd must travel there to educate the new manager, Puro, who will replace him soon. Despite his goal being to have the new workers successfully gain the skills needed for the job by becoming more invested into the American culture, Todd realizes that to achieve his goal, he must also become engaged and more open with the Indian culture.
Todd and the audiences witness many of the important customs that Indians practice in their lives. For instance, when Todd is seen eating with his left hand, Puro acknowledges it and informs him that in their country, the left hand must never be used to eat with as it is considered as dirty and only useful for bathroom purposes. In India, it is also common to continue living with your parents and be apart of arranged marriages. Asha, a worker who Todd becomes closer and falls in love with, reluctantly has to accept that she cannot be with Todd due to her arranged marriage, a decision she had no voice in. Unlike in America, Indian women often do not have much power or high respect as men do, an idea that can be seen when Todd first compliments Asha's work skills and promotes her quickly to assistant manager. As a result, Puro is noticeably perplexed and caught off guard by the fact that Asha, a woman, managed to receive such a high honor for her intelligence. A favorite and much anticipated holiday that takes place in India, the Day of Holi celebrates the new season with adults and children throwing colorful powders at one another. Another major element of the Indian culture is their language and religion. Most of the natives speak Hindi and are strong, loyal adherents of Hinduism. As we learned before, Hinduism involves the worshiping of several deities, including Kali, goddess of destruction, whose picture and statue Todd often encounters throughout the movie.
The globalization of popular culture is also looked at in the movie as Todd introduces the trainees to the popular products sold in America, including sportswear and hot dog toasters. Another example includes the spread of the McDonald's food chain. In the movie, the menu of the burger restaurant is adjusted to fit Indian culture, with there being no items containing actual meat but a vegetarian substitute as Hindus avoid eating meat.
Characteristics of India, an LDC, are also pointed out in the film, with there being scenes showing the poverty the people deal with and how much cheaper it is to hire workers there for companies like Western Novelty. Many of the natives in India struggle to find easy access to things such as electricity and food unlike people in MDCs. Along with that, it is much cheaper hiring workers in LDCs to perform jobs for Western Novelty as compared to hiring employees in MDCs.
Overall, "Outsourced" was an enjoyable film that really ends on a heartwarming and happy note. The movie also connected well to the topics we've been learning about throughout the year, making it a fun, educational review.
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