This report presents a fresh approach to understanding outsourcing by drawing on original research, presented to suit a business audience. Issues of success, costs, benefits and risks are reconsidered on the basis of recent evidence.

Specific topics include:
* Recent and future outsourcing trends
* Why expectations are the key to outsourcing success
* How the outsourcing process unfolds (based on a five-phase model)
* The economics behind outsourcing
* The key risks associated with outsourcing, and how these can be managed
* How to craft, and negotiate, an effective „„service level agreement (SLA)
* Legal/contracting issues to watch
* The challenges of new forms of outsourcing – including offshore outsourcing, risk/reward contracts, and outsourcing to the cloud and
* How to manage the ongoing outsourcing arrangement.