ABSTRACT
Outsourcing is not necessarily the way ahead for every organization or business and, in any event, should never be considered to be an end in itself. Rather, it should emerge as part of an overall business improvement plan. With that in mind, the first step in any initiative of this kind must be to secure board-level support. The general concept of evaluating current business practice is to determine whether improvements can be identified; then later to assess whether outsourcing would be the most effective and cost-efficient means of achieving those improvements. How such support can best be harnessed remains a matter for the individual, but experience would suggest there is no substitute for a direct approach, centred perhaps on one of the following areas, all or any of which should be sufficient to seize the attention of senior management and secure a line on the agenda of the next Board meeting. Your organization may not be as large as the organization from which I came, but the same principles should apply for small and medium-sized enterprises. Everyone in business generates records in some form or other.
