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

In a cul-de-sac?

It is clearly impossible for the board to cater to every possible eventuality, but J. Sainsbury’s story underlines the fact that any decision on outsourcing should take into account all aspects of the corporate risk profile. This includes how quickly and how far the competition will move, the pace of consolidation, how rapidly advancing technology will erode some key cash cows, and how fast the business would be able to respond to all these changes by applying what it already has.

For an example of this all-round view, look at Nokia – a former forestry company that is now a global leader in mobile handsets. Seeing its traditional marketplace under pressure, it invested in a portfolio of technology-driven options. The rest is ...