Outsource

Abstract

Outsourcing is one of the most misunderstood terms or rather misused terms in modern business practice, merely because no-one really defines what they mean by it nor why they think they may or may not need it. Commonly, outsourcing is used where the process to be outsourced is ‘not core to the business’. If this was a true statement then there would never have been buy or build solutions in the first place. The fact is that this reason is completely spurious. Whatever is required to understand what a customer wants and get it to them for a profit is, by definition, core to the business. The reality is that outsourcing is more often applied to an activity or process that no-one can be bothered to spend much time on, isn’t seen as ‘exciting’ or that the firm is just so inefficient at that some third party can do it cheaper. This may seem like I’m not a fan of outsourcing — quite the contrary. It is just that I see more outsourcing deals done for the wrong reasons with the wrong set of benchmarks than I do almost any other business activity.