Outsourcing is shifting a company’s essential operations to a third party vendor in order to gain various benefits including better services, low cost and speedy work.

The company that chooses to outsource is known as the customer or buyer while the third party that provides outsourced services is known as the supplier or vendor. The vendor may be a firm or a group of individuals, which is generally situated at a different physical location (sometimes even a different country).

In outsourcing, the vendor has complete control over the process being outsourced as compared to contracting in which the customer has more control over the process being contracted.