The decision to outsource should be based on an organization’s mission and business strategy.
Like any other business, laboratories and the organizations they are affiliated with continually struggle with cycling budgets, staff, and capabilities. As such, a decision that lab directors and managers must periodically make is determining what portion of the lab’s tasks and support functions to keep in-house and what portion of the work to outsource.
The answer is not always simple. Not only do internal considerations account for the decision, but also the potential and existing clientele, though indirectly, are a factor. “People expect you to provide a full slate of services, and if there’s something missing from your catalog, they might think that you’re not the one-stop shop that they’re looking for, and so you have to be careful in determining what you think is vital for your core clientele versus what you can afford to outsource,” says Jerry Torrison, director of the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.