Outsourcing is a strategic management model wherein business processes are transferred to another company. The concept is: to let a third party service provider perform the management and/or day-to-day execution of one or more business functions. This third party service provider is Insourcing those same processes. Outsourcing occurs when a company uses an outside firm to provide a necessary business function that might otherwise be done in-house.
It is different from Subcontracting, because the function is provided on an ongoing basis, rather than for a specific project. It can be provided on the same or another location, in the same country or in a separate country (Offshoring).
In its most advanced form, outsourcing makes it possible to build a large, entirely virtual company with only a single employee: the entrepreneur himself.
