Even McDonalds is outsourcing.

There's an excellent post over on the Future of Work Blog about outsourcing... citing an example from The World is Flat. It reminds me of one of my favorite passges from the book about making yourself indispensable.

"One of my favorite stories out of Tom Friedman's The World is Flat has always been about the McDonald's in Missouri that outsourced its drive-in order taking to a call center in Colorado (click here for my review of The World is Flat, published last May).

The McDonald's story is a simple one: specialized order-takers in a remote call center do a much better job of getting customer orders correct, and they are a lot more focused and productive than the folks at the window 50 yards ahead of the ordering station who are also trying to fill orders, take cash, and make change.

It's a wonderful example of how "location neutral" many work tasks have become - and how specialization can increase productivity even in such mundane jobs as taking orders for burgers and fries.

Now for an update: today's New York Times reports that there are currently over 40 McDonald's restaurants around the country (including Honolulu) that are supported by a call center in Santa Maria, California, 150 miles east of Los Angeles"

http://www.thefutureofwork.net/blog/archives/000469.html