Abstract

Sourcing decisions have been recognized for their potential to significantly impact a company’s business and value creation. Based on the stages-of-growth model for outsourcing, offshoring and backsourcing, a framework to analyze and predict organizational change is suggested. Using the costs, resources and partnership parameters of the framework, benchmarks applicable to each stage are applied in two business examples. The lessons learned from the experiences of these two examples are useful in analyzing stages, dominant problems at each stage, evolutionary path and the economies of outsourcing. The findings indicate that companies face different issues, expectations and benefits, depending on their maturity.