Are you feeling the credit crunch? Most Americans are affected one way or the other. Higher grocery bills are hard to ignore at the checkout and many of us know of someone who has lost their job in 2008.

In my opinion, downsizing is a sign of the economy turning around. Companies realize that they need to cut-back and reorganize, and not continue the spending spree of the last decade. They are finally learning that to be more profitable in today’s economy a company needs to stick to its core competencies.

In 1990, the debate among business leaders, academics, economists, and others, was greatly enhanced by the publication of an article entitled, “The Core Competence of the Corporation,” by C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel. They coined the term “core competency” to describe competitive advantage of leveraging the collective knowledge, experience, and skills of a firm’s product lines.

So why are Solution Providers not feeling the crunch as bad? One word… Outsourcing.

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