Smarter Outsourcing: An executive guide to understanding, planning and exploiting successful outsourcing relationships

What do you mean by outsourcing?

‘Outsourcing’ is a word loaded with connotations and preconceptions. Even dictionary definitions of it range from concise to exhaustive, and from superficial to off-beam. A few of them are shown in the accompanying box.

Outsourcing: what’s in a word? It seems a simple question to ask: ‘What does outsourcing mean?’ But the definitions presented in a random selection of today’s English dictionaries and other sources suggest the answer is far more complicated than the question. Here are a few: Purchasing a significant percentage of intermediate components from outside suppliers. —Bloomberg Financial Glossary The practice of subcontracting manufacturing work to outside, and especially foreign or non-union companies. ...