Is Outsourcing Killing Authenticity?

HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE—Do customers care where brand-name goods are made? Assuming, that is, that quality standards are maintained and the means of manufacture aren’t exploitative, does it make a difference to them whether a product is assembled in Milan or Malaysia?

Sometimes it does. Consider a quirky example from Chicago, where a management team was caught off guard by an intense public reaction. Marshall Fields, an icon of Midwestern retailing, had the longtime practice of making chocolates on the 13th floor of its flagship store on State Street. Customers devoted to Frango mints could pop up to see them being made. When a new corporate parent, Dayton Hudson, acquired Marshall Fields in 1999, it was a straightforward decision to end that practice – everything about it was un-economic – and outsource production to a distant chocolatier. The public outcry was way out of proportion to the number of jobs affected. Chicagoans seemed to take the matter personally, even to the extent that Mayor Richard Daley put his disapproval on record. Read article.