Global sourcing and offshoring strategies

Abstract

In recent years outsourcing strategies have undergone a profound evolution: from simple forms of production contracts made with third parties to agreements that involve functions and activities which, requiring “core competencies”, or being part of the “core business”, have until now been considered inseparable from the company. In many industries, only companies that manage to be competitive globally can aspire to attain sustainable competitive advantages. The tendency today is to attain global sourcing and offshoring. This tendency has become extremely important for companies that compete worldwide and lead to outsource most of the functions and processes, achieving, can take on an extreme form defined as “extreme outsourcing”, and lead to the formation of a virtual organization, a company characterized by the pure business coordination of its businesses, where all the productive and economic processes have been outsourced through the formation of a stable but flexible network (Mella, 2019; Pellicelli, 2018).