Strategy and Foresight
The Executive Decision Behind Make-or-Buy
Make-or-buy is not a simple cost comparison. It determines where capability, knowledge, risk, control and future strategic options will reside.
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12 articles found
Strategy and Foresight
Privatisation, Outsourcing and Public Value: Choosing the Right Boundary for Government
Governments face a boundary choice between owning, contracting and transferring services. The decision should be judged by long-term public value, not short-term fiscal benefit.
Strategy and Foresight
In-House, Out-Task or Outsource? Choosing the Right Sourcing Model
Not every external service is outsourcing. Choosing between in-house work, out-tasking and outsourcing should reflect strategic importance, dependency and reversibility.
Risk and Resilience
What Did You Hand Your Contract Manufacturer That You Cannot Get Back?
Outsourcing is approved as a transfer of cost and executed as a transfer of capability. What crosses the boundary, and which protections stop at a border.
Program Governance
Visibility You Cannot Use
How deeply you can see into work you have commissioned is a decision almost nobody makes deliberately — and depth is worthless without someone able to read it.
Portfolio Leadership
From Execution Attention to Governance Attention
Contracting a function out does not free senior capacity. It converts execution attention into governance attention at a rate no business case states, rarely at par.
Organisational Capability
Outsourcing Without Hollowing Out the Organisation
External capability can strengthen an organisation or slowly remove its ability to govern, innovate and recover. Retained capability must be designed deliberately.
Operational Excellence
Is Your Make-or-Buy a Cost Decision or a Capability Decision?
Make-or-buy is usually argued on unit cost. The margin most firms think they gain by making is conditional on scale they may not have.
Business Models and Growth
When You Put a Margin Between the Enterprise and a Function
Outsourcing prices the part of a function someone could describe. The unspecified remainder stops the day a margin is interposed, and it was often why the function mattered.
Business Models and Growth
The Hidden Lifecycle Cost of Outsourcing
Outsourcing savings can disappear in transition, governance, change and exit. A sound business case must evaluate the entire commercial lifecycle.
Business Models and Growth
In-House or Outsource? The Strategic Decision Behind Manufacturing Capability
A decision framework for make-versus-buy choices that considers strategic capability, total cost, resilience, learning and long-term competitive position.
Business Models and Growth
From Producer to Orchestrator
Some enterprises stopped making things and started orchestrating projects. The model moves where margin sits, and imports a failure profile along with it.
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