. Why do you think they would do this? It seems like they are wasting a lot of money to have someone come and count everything when they could have their own employees do it. Say you are a manager of a department in Lowes and inventory is coming up. You know that if all the numbers do not look good then you will not get the bonus that they are offering for anyone who scores well. After counting everything you realize that an entire pallet of shingles is missing. You definitely will not get that bonus now. Many managers might fall to the temptation to lie and add in that pallet that really is missing. This is an example of why a company would outsource inventory rather than count it themselves. An external company does not even know how many you are supposed to have. They just come in and do there job that they are paid to do which is count. This is an example of one type of outsourcing. The majority of companies do not outsource because they do not trust their employees but rather because it is cheaper. You may be wondering how it is cheaper. We will tackle this question later on but now that you understand what outsourcing is let me give you a little history about it.
             The term 'outsourcing' is a relatively new term that was invented by the information systems trade press back in the 1980's. The term was invented to describe the growing number of large companies who were transferring their information systems to other companies who provided this service. However, the actual idea dates back hundreds of years. You may not even realize it but you have probably dealt with something similar to outsourcing many times in your life. If you have ever hired anyone to come into your house and fix something you have participated in a form of outsourcing. Think about it. Say your house was a company and you were an employee. Rather then spend the money to send you to school to learn about plumbing you just hir...