I don’t know if outsourcing is something you have undertaken recently or are contemplating for your business? Or, on the flipside, are you or have you been a specialist contractor or part of an outsourcing team offering your skills to companies?
I’m guessing you’ve probably answered yes to one of those questions but, I wonder, have you ever been involved in R&D outsourcing?
Outsourcing has been on the increase over the last 30 years, driven by the difficulty of maintaining world-class standards across all aspects of business activity and a desire to reduce costs. It started with the outsourcing of support activities and then moved on to mainstream activities such as manufacturing, distribution and customer service. Non-technology companies have often outsourced product development, but for technology companies this activity has remained largely in-house.
Increasingly though, technology companies are experimenting with development outsourcing strategies. The need for R&D teams to develop differentiated products and services to meet the market needs coupled with the need to stay abreast of all technology developments and new competitive threats has meant R&D outsourcing has become more and more attractive.
If R&D outsourcing is something that is, or has, affected you, I hope you may be interested in my joint paper
“Implementing business strategy with virtual R&D teams“.
(I presented the paper along with my colleague David Allen at the IEEE Engineering Management Conference in Washington).
In the paper, we examine the issues surrounding R&D outsourcing and, most importantly, how to mitigate them through the introduction of the right strategic and tactical management processes.
To learn more about R&D outsourcing and read the paper click here.