Building Societies and Strategic Sourcing: Criteria and Dynamics

In the literature of strategic management outsourcing has become recognised as a means to achieve a range of strategic benefits. This article examines the criteria employed by building societies to select and evaluate opportunities for outsourcing. The societies’ sourcing decisions are subject to multiple criteria that, together with a conservative culture, act to limit the use of outsourcing. Case material is used to develop a model of sourcing that relates the processes of evaluation, review and learning to changes in the technological, legal and market environment. Changes in the environment require the societies to retain the ability to monitor; review and possibly reverse sourcing decisions.