Outsourcing is not simply to reduce cost and potentially improve efficiency and increase innovation. It clearly is a way of getting a contractor or business partner to do "non-core" things which you cannot do, unable to do and perhaps think that you don’t need to do.
One interesting recent story is about big organizations who want their big legal firms to have more minority lawyers- particularly at the partner level. But minority lawyers are difficult to hire and retain by the bigger law firms simply because these firms are predominantly white and minority lawyers feel "out of place." Several big law firms have come up with an interesting alternative. For example, in this story from the "Minority Law Journal" of May 12, Dimitra Kessenides mentions that the law firm Sonnenschein, Womble and Venable has tied up with minority firm Brown & Sheehan. Together they are pitching for business and this is opening up new opportunities for Minority Law firms. However, the concern in the article is whether the bigger law firms are simply "outsourcing" the diversity "problem." On the other hand Minority Owned Law firms will have an opportunity to shape diversity inside the big firm. Interesting….