Sourcing

Global sourcing is the practice of sourcing from the global market for goods and services across geopolitical boundaries. Global sourcing often aims to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery of a product or service. These efficiencies include low cost skilled labor, low cost raw material and other economic factors like tax breaks and low trade tariffs.

Common examples of globally sourced products or services include: labor-intensive manufactured products produced using low-cost Chinese labor, call centers staffed with low-cost English speaking workers in the Philippines and India, and IT work performed by low-cost programmers in India and Eastern Europe. While these examples are examples of Low-cost country sourcing, global sourcing is not limited to low-cost countries.

Majority of companies today strive to harness the potential of global sourcing in reducing cost. Hence it is commonly found that global sourcing initiatives and programs form an integral part of the strategic sourcingplan and procurement strategy of many multinational companies.

Global sourcing is often associated with a centralized procurement strategy for a multinational, wherein a central buying organization seeks economies of scale through corporate-wide standardization and benchmarking.