The most basic example, in my humble opinion, is the house maid.

The current global economic situation, especially in the US & Europe and the policies of the new president Obama are definately a roadhump in the otherwise definate growth of the said business process. However, this is aptly and effectively countered by the PEs, who see out sourcing as a good way of shortening the ROI to a now 7 years instaed of originally planned 3. The solution, Mr. President, is not to outlaw out sourcing but optimise your own businesses, processes et all to make them globally competitive, especially in this age of global village concept.

The challenge in out sourcing remain the careful, time & effort consuming selection of the right partner/ vendor. Here the mapping has to be done not only in the your business requirement - partner skill matrix but also the size and market strength of the out sourcing and out sourced organisations.

Another important issue here is turnkey/ selective out sourcing. Here the choice is between letting go and thus depending on a single partner or continually making the effort of managing the out sourced partners and thus controlling the out comes.

The debate as well as tangents are many. However, the fact remains - out sourcing is here to stay and is a growing phenomenon.