The globalization and development of the network society meant thatextensive IT outsourcing activity was inevitable. At fi rst, the mainreason was cost reduction, but today’s organizations have to do offshoreoutsourcingfor other reasons as well. However outsourcing is no simpletask and practical guidance based on extensive experience can be hardto find. A number of companies have invested heavily in continually refining theiroutsourcing skills to achieve best practice. This book takes their valuableexperience and expertise and now makes it available to a much largeraudience. What’s more, this Best Practice is so important that it has been developedinto courseware and training dedicated to those who need to makeoutsourcing work. The PON (Platform Outsourcing Netherlands) providescourses on the Basics of Sourcing for their members, and this bookrepresents the most important aspects of these. The course trainers are allexperts from organizations connected to PON and their detailed coursenotes and skills have all contributed to this unique title. This ground-breaking text is also suitable as a manual for college studentsin their third year,specially students in Informatics, Management Science,Law and Human Resource Management. A passing knowledge of ITILand/or ISO/IEC 20000 is helpful to readers.