The term outsourcing refers to the contracting out of a business process to an external provider. This is often referred to as Business Process Outsourcing or BPO. When businesses outsource to suppliers outside of their own country, it is often referred to as offshoring, or offshore outsourcing. Virtually any conceivable business practice can be outsourced for any number of reasons.

Offshore outsourcing is a $50 billion dollar per year business worldwide that grew by an annual rate of over 20% per year for the past decade until last year. While outsourcing growth for large companies has begun to level off, outsourcing by small to medium sized businesses continues to grow dramatically due to technology advancements such as VOIP, which have brought down costs; as well as increased understanding of the benefits outsourcing offers to organizations of any size.