NCC Members have free access to this Guideline on the Principia website.

A company, or a department within it, has a primary purpose - a bank offers you credit, an insurance company enables you to contain risk, an airline enables you to travel, a local authority's social services department looks after the needy. Every activity that a company undertakes that is not directly connected with that primary purpose is essentially a support function.

Public and private sector organisations today are under pressure to ensure that such support activities are delivered efficiently, and flexibly.

Outsourcing these support activities to firms whose primary purpose is to execute such activities is called Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

These Guidelines look at:

• the type and scope of processes that can be outsourced
• the vendor landscape and impact on offshoring
• the risks and issues
• setting BPO strategy
• delivering the benefits of offshoring