The word outsourcing is all too common in today’s discussions, newsletters and blog postings… You would think the word insourcing would be just as popular.
“Insourcing is when a company needs to bring in skills or specific content expertise that is not resident in the organization already.”

Insourcing is often the result of a new business initiative, strategy or opportunity that the client would like to take advantage of or a market they would like to investigate. Often the client does not have the resources and knowledgeable talent needed to execute the proper business strategy. These roles can range from administrative and support services to functional or business knowledge; analytic or functional abilities; technical or business methodologies and practices; or experience in a specific approach or business strategy the client is trying to implement or deploy via the enterprise.

Such words like contractor, temp and freelancer have been used in the past to describe augmented personnel and additions. Realistically, such words like strategic insourcing contributors, partners and stakeholders now come to mind. Do you know that subcontracting significant additional help dates back to the Middle Ages ??

“In the middle ages, the term freelancer was used to describe mercenary knights. A free lancer was an available soldier (with a lance – of course) who was for hire and would defend a lord for a price.” The freelancer had a significant stakeholder and a vested interest in making sure strategies were implemented successfully.

Resource: M. McGovern & D. Russell. “A New Brand of Expertise – How Independent Consultants, Free Agents and Interim Managers Are Transforming The World of Work.” Copyright 2001

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