When To Outsource - What To Keep In-House

If highly sensitive and confidential information will be revealed during the execution of the project, do not outsource. Example: if the project requires access to customer lists and future orders, do not outsource. Whereas revealing office locations or other public information would not compromise your business and could be outsourced. The primary reason is price. Outsourcing typically costs more than if the work was done in-house since you are paying some 'fixed costs and profit' dollars as part of the cost to do the work. There will always be a need for accounting personnel and although this is not a core skill, the need is ongoing and should be kept in-house, as an example. This would impact project approach, employee moral, customer interaction (if any) and feedback. An example of recent outsourcing which may not have been a good idea is customer support for computer equipment sales by Dell. Dell could not control the interaction with their customers and there were numerous complaints about communication skills, product knowledge and general attitude of the outsourced technician. Many companies that outsourced support have taken back control. Consider the business of building cars. The assembly-line is core and you would not want to outsource this process, while computer training is not core and you would be able to outsource this without impacting your business integrity. Typically, outsourcing is done offsite at the outsourcer's facility under their management control while subcontracting is done on your site under your management control. Some of the same concerns and considerations apply when determining which direction to go. Outsourcing tends to be a longer term decision with the largest loss of control.