Offshoring vs. Outsourcing

Offshoringnoun

The location of a business in another country for tax purposes or lowering production costs.

Offshoring

Offshoring is the relocation of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Usually this refers to a company business, although state governments may also employ offshoring.

Outsourcingnoun

The transfer of a business function to an external service provider.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity that is or could be done internally and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another. The term outsourcing, which came from the phrase outside resourcing, originated no later than 1981.