[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

9 Outsourcing, partnering and the virtual
organization
9.1 Introduction
‘I’ve had plenty of practice,’ the Knight said very
gravely, ‘plenty of practice!’
(Through the Looking Glass, C. Dodgson (1872))
We have suggested that one useful concept of virtual organization
is that of an opportunistic grouping of collaborating
organizations, each of which focuses on a set of core competencies
or capabilities at which it excels (see Chapter 4). This
opportunistic network of firms is fluid and changes according to
circumstances and needs. Such a network of firms is likely to be
created and sustained through the processes of outsourcing and
partnering/alliance formation.
As the trend toward moving away from non-core activities
intensifies, and indeed as the relationship between companies
and their suppliers becomes less and less like the purchasing of
the service and more and more like a partnership, so the trend
toward virtual organizing will increase. Furthermore, as firms
utilize IT and the Internet to expedite the information exchange
elements of maintaining such relationships, we move even
closer to the classically defined virtual organizational form.
In contrast to the position adopted in this book, in which we
argue for the desirable existence of several different forms of
virtual organization as strategic responses to give environments
and opportunities, some writers posit the desirability of the new
collaborating organization which uses alliance or outsourcing
strategies as the complete means of component process fulfilment.
It will help us now to look at these models or visions for
the future, looking at the role of both outsourcing and
partnering or alliances, and close relationship of both these to
virtual organizing and the virtual organizational form.