Q: I keep hearing about "outsourcing." What is it?

A: We started using the term in the late 1980s. Outsourcing refers to getting some other organization to do things that are none-core, that is, things that are tangential to your primary operations. The outsourcing company manages and performs that tangential operation.

Q: Sort of like subcontracting?

A: Close enough.

Q: Examples?

A: Sure. Recently a friend was in the hospital. His visit started in the emergency room. Later on, when examining his bill, he discovered that the services of the emergency room had been outsourced. The hospital had found an organization that could, supposedly, perform the necessary services more efficiently and less expensively.

Q: I get it. Don't a lot of companies do it with their Help Desks?

A: Sure do. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Here's a little story (not true, of course) that might tell us something:
A man was trying to get a job at a Help Desk, and the manager told him that he had passed all the tests, and that if he could do one more thing, he had the job. That one thing was use the words yellow, pink, and green in a sentence. The applicant thought a minute, and then said, "The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up, and say 'Yellow, can I help you?"
He got the job.

Q: I think I've talked to that guy!

A: We all have. Seriously, though, there are advantages to such an operation. A person who is given the proper resources and who understands the product or the problem can often provide more assistance than a person who is trying to do three jobs at the same time and isn't particularly good at explaining things. Most management consultants say you should find the one thing you are good at and concentrate all your efforts in that direction. Maybe providing the kind of assistance we have been talking about isn't what you are good at; then it is appropriate to outsource.

Q: I guess that's right. It seems we've done it almost everywhere. Is there more to come?

A: Yes. Here's an example: if you visit a McDonald's restaurant at any one of a couple of dozen locations in the country, and go to the drive-through window, the person you talk to when placing the order may be a thousand miles away. He or she sends your order to the kitchen via a wide area network (WAN) or a virtual private network (VPN) or the Internet.

Q: C'mon!

A: No, really. And, according to reports, both speed and accuracy are improved. Furthermore, in at least one location a digital camera mounted on the menu board takes a photograph of the driver and car. Then the person delivering the order can match the food to the customer.

Q: I hope this doesn't catch on.

A: Don't count on it not catching on – because it’s already happening!