Many people are confused when it comes to the true definition of outsourcing so I decided to focus on this.

The book, Project Management with the IBM® Rational Unified Process®: Lessons From The Trenches defined outsourcing as the "process of retaining resources external to the procuring organization to conduct software development and related activities."

There were four reasons identified which supported this kind of definition. These four reasons are the following:

-no restrictions on the size or number of resources external to the procuring organization. It could be from individuals or groups

-no restrictions on the location of the external resources

-no restrictions on the number of organizations involved.

-does not exclude the companies from performing some of the work itself and then outsourcing only a portion of it to third parties.

I hope that definition would give people an idea of the true meaning of outsourcing.