INTRODUCTION TO OUTSOURCING:Definition:The practice of outsourcing certain business functions outside of a company instead of outsourcing them to a department or internal employee; functions can be outsourced to a company or an individual. In common terms, outsourcing is a practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring part of the work to external suppliers rather than carrying it out in-house. It can also be defined as the exploitation of services from third parties (Smith & McKeen, 2012). Outsourcing is an increasingly common trend in information technology and other industries for services generally considered intrinsic to running a business. In some cases, a company's entire information management is outsourced, including business planning and analysis as well as network and workstation installation, management and maintenance. More and more companies, large and small, are turning to outsourcing to grow while controlling salaries and overhead costs (Ribbers & Routledge, 2011). Outsourcing certain functions reduces the company's workload. Sometimes the company does not have sufficient equipment or technical expertise; at that point, outsourcing the work to a vendor may yield a higher quality result. Additionally, by outsourcing, the need to hire individuals internally is avoided, minimizing the recruitment cost for the company. If the company has branches in other countries, it may be difficult to manage customers there. In this case, it can outsource some of its functions. To reduce costs, many companies relocate their call centers to locations with lower employee pay rates (Ilan, Kotlarsky, & Willcocks, 2009). IT infrastructure at SchaefferSchaeffer...... middle of paper...... For his functions, he must then consider all divisions equally, and then decide which possible jobs can be outsourced, so that all divisions have an equal advantage. R (2001): The Outsourcing Guide, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK. Altinkemer. k, Chaturvedi. A and Gulati. R (1994): Information systems outsourcing: issues and evidence, International Journal of Information Management, 14, 252-268. James D. McKeen and Heather Smith (2012): IT Strategy-Issues and Practices, second edition. Jeffrey A. Hoffer, E. Wainright Martin, Carol V. Brown, and Daniel w. DeHayes (2009): Information Technology Management, Seventh Edition. Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky and Leslie Willcocks (2009): The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring, Palgrave McMillan. Pieter Ribbers, Jan Roos Routledge (2011): Managing IT Outsourcing,