More and more organisations are finding that outsourcing is not a panacea to reduce costs. A few decades ago outsourcing was hot. Organisations looked at which operations they could cut from the core, so which activities they could contract out. They also made agreements about deliverables and the required quality levels. On paper this made these organisations more cost-effective, but outsourcing also had a downside. Expertise disappeared from the organisation, quality became harder to control, and outsource partners turned out to be more reliable on paper than in actual fact. This is why many organisations have now reversed the process. They are now insourcing processes and expertise, and they only work with external parties that they can trust 100%.

In the electronic interconnect industry this new trend has been visible for a number of years. Outsourcing is on the way out, and insourcing is hot now. At first sight, this would seem to make products more expensive. However, because the whole supply chain including quality control is now in one hand, buyers put more trust in the organisation, and consequently the bottom line is more profits.

PIEK has been cooperating with many partners in the electronic interconnect industry for decades, and we have seen what outsourcing does. We know how much extra work it requires for an organisation to fine-tune products and services with an external party, and we see how much the parties can gain and how much they stand to lose. As an educational partner for big as well as small enterprises we can give sound advice on whether to produce articles in-house or externally. We know the market and its bottlenecks, and our consultancy department is eager to assist any organisation in this respect.