Final answer:
Outsourcing supply chain management has been adopted by companies to gain efficiencies and reduce costs despite its complexities, facilitated by advancements that make splitting up the value chain across countries more feasible.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question concerns the complexities of supply chain management and the practice of outsourcing various elements of supply chains by companies. Despite the challenges presented by complex supply chains, firms have incorporated outsourcing to improve efficiency and reduce costs. This has been made possible by advancements in technology, communication, and transportation that facilitate the splitting up of the value chain.
Outsourcing was initially related to manufacturing but has expanded to include services such as customer service and technical support. With economic globalization and trade agreements like NAFTA, offshoring became a strategy for companies to access cheaper labor markets abroad without completely outsourcing the operations. These practices of outsourcing and offshoring have resulted in the redistribution of jobs across different regions, often impacting the workforce in developed nations negatively while creating job opportunities in developing nations.
Meanwhile, the split of the value chain enables the production of goods in stages across different geographical locations, which has altered the nature of international trade. Rather than trading complete products, countries now exchange parts and components as part of intra-industry trade. This allows for specialization and can potentially lead to economic benefits such as increased innovation and efficiency within industries.