Digital download. All sales are final: no refunds or returns. Each format can be downloaded 3 times, and the links stay valid for 30 days. If you need more, reply to your confirmation email and we will sort it out.
Giving the work away was usually sound: a provider with scale, a fee below your own cost, a management burden gone. What makes the return a decision rather than a switch is what has moved since. The people left with the work, the provider ran your volume through buildings and teams shared with other clients, and the knowledge is now the provider's, so the price of the return is set now and not by what giving the work away saved then. By the time it reaches an agenda the room has taken the fee, subtracted the margin it believes the provider earns, and called the difference a saving. That is not the comparison. This pack turns it into a subtraction, an annuity, and one division. What you pay the provider a year, less what running the work yourself would cost at your own scale, plus what the provider's position costs you beyond the fee, across the years you will keep it and discounted, is what having it back is worth. Against it: standing it up, the months during which your own operation is staffed and the provider is still being paid, and ending the agreement. Both sides are linear in the in-house cost, so the whole question reduces to the break-even in-house cost, the most running it yourself can cost before taking it back stops paying, and the distance from it to your own costing is what a board can watch. A second figure falls out of the same rows: the break-even horizon, how many years the work must stay inside before the reversal pays, read against the years the board will actually give it. It stops on two halts: the work has never been costed at your own scale, and no one has counted the months you pay both.
What is the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack
The Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: you gave the work away and want it back, so what does that cost now? It is built around one organizing claim: the saving the room is counting is the provider's margin, what stayed with the provider is its scale, and the question is whether the work is cheaper at your own scale and, if it is not, whether what the provider's position costs you covers the gap. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a repatriation model blank and worked, the moves at each reading, nine sourced reversals, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
whether running the work yourself at your own scale is cheaper than the fee, and if it is not, whether what the provider's position costs you covers the gap. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even in-house cost — the most running it yourself can cost before taking it back stops paying. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why insourcing vs outsourcing is the wrong comparison
An outsourcing reversal is a decision to run work yourself that an outside provider runs for you today. Giving the work away was usually sound. What makes the return a decision rather than a switch is what has moved since: the people left with the work, the provider ran your volume through buildings and teams shared with other clients, and the knowledge is now the provider's. A room takes the fee, subtracts the margin it believes the provider earns, and calls the difference a saving.
That is not the comparison. The fee less a margin is a number about the provider, whose scale you do not have. At your own volume, in your own buildings, with people hired at today's wage, the work frequently costs more than the fee. And the months during which your own operation is staffed and the provider is still being paid appear in no plan, because no one owns the transition. So the room compares the provider's invoice to a guess, and approves it.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What you pay the provider, less what running the work yourself would cost at your own scale, plus what the provider's position costs you a year, across the years you will keep it and discounted, is what having it back is worth. Against it: standing it up, the months you pay both, and ending the agreement. Then the whole decision reduces to one figure: the break-even in-house cost, which is the most running it yourself can cost before taking it back stops paying.
How to reverse an outsourcing decision without pricing the provider's margin
| The reading | What it means | The first move |
|---|---|---|
| Cheaper in-house, and it pays | The rare reading, and the one to check twice. | Name what the provider has that you would not, and cost the operation again with that removed. |
| Costs more in-house, and it still pays | The commonest surprise, and the opposite of where the room started. | Say both numbers in the same sentence, then write down what the provider's position costs you and name who signs it. |
| It pays, but not within the horizon | The break-even horizon is longer than the years the board will give it. | Change the agreement before changing the boundary, and take back a piece rather than the whole. |
| It does not pay at any horizon | Running it yourself costs more, and the provider's position does not cover the gap. | Stay out, say why in numbers, and fix what the provider's position costs you in the agreement. |
Six of the nine sourced reversals held, two are partial, and one was given up within thirteen months. Every one that held took years to build, and the one that tried to buy its way past the years is the set's only loser.
What is in the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why taking work back is not giving it away in reverse, the arithmetic, the three routes back, and the conditions that stop the analysis.
- Concept deck. Twenty-three slides for a board or an operations review, with nine sourced reversals and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Repatriation model. Eleven candidate in-house costs across the columns, the one-time cost of taking it back, and the break-even in-house cost and horizon that decide it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next reversal cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced reversals — six held, two are partial, and one was given up within a year — and one record held apart.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the fee, the years gone, the in-house cost at your own scale, the one-time cost, the position cost, and whether the reversal pays.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. The fee, who is left, costing the work at your own scale, the transition, the position cost, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive with a provider that has been described as the problem for two quarters and a saving that has been costed for none of them; a chief financial officer being asked to approve a purchase against a number no one has produced at the company's own scale; a chief operating officer who will inherit the work on the day it comes back and has not been asked what it costs to run; a program director who knows the plan has one start date and one end date on the same day; a board member reading a saving with nothing beside it; a private equity operating partner underwriting a business whose margin sits inside an outsourcing agreement; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a company pays $84m a year for fulfillment it gave away seven years ago and walks in believing it would cost $67m to run itself. Costed at its own scale, the work costs $91m, so the saving is negative $7m a year. Taking it back still pays by $29.3m over eight years, entirely because the provider's position costs $31m a year: the break-even in-house cost is $95.9m against the $91m costed, and the work must stay inside 5.7 years against the 8 the board will give it. With the position cost at zero, the break-even in-house cost is $67.4m, the room's own starting number, and the reversal never pays.
The framework content is the larger share of the pack, and each page marks which is which. Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast what running the work yourself will cost; that figure is your own costing, and the Model tab sweeps it in both directions because no room can settle it in advance. It holds the in-house cost flat across the horizon, which is a simplification worth testing where the answer is close. It does not price what the work taken back might later be sold to others for, which four of the nine cases did and none of them planned. And it says nothing about what the provider's position protects you from. None of the nine cases is a manufacturing line, a call center, or an IT contract, and nothing is asserted about them.
Questions about the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and eleven supporting rows. The break-even in-house cost, which is the most running the work yourself can cost a year before taking it back stops paying, with the distance from it to your own costing; and the break-even horizon, how many years the work must stay inside before the reversal pays. Around them: the in-house cost against the fee, the saving on cost alone, what having it back earns a year and over the horizon, what taking it back costs once and how much of that is the months you pay both, the difference, whether it pays, the one-time cost in years of profit, and the fee against revenue. The Model tab sweeps the in-house cost from a quarter below your figure to a quarter above, and one row turns from Yes to No at the point where taking it back stops paying.
- Our provider's margin is twenty percent. Is that our saving?
- Not on that fact alone, and that is the whole point of the pack. The provider's margin is earned on the provider's scale, and what comes back with the work is the work without it. In the worked case an $84m fee against a $91m in-house cost at the company's own scale makes the saving negative $7m a year, and taking the work back still pays by $29.3m over eight years because the provider's position costs $31m a year, a figure no one had written down.
- We don't know what the work would cost to run ourselves.
- Most companies do not, because the last costing was made the year the work left and the people who made it left with it. It is two weeks with finance and operations, and the manual sets out the five places the cost hides. Until it exists the room is costing the provider's business rather than its own.
- Does this only apply to logistics?
- No. It applies wherever work is done outside and someone wants it back: manufacturing, customer service, IT, analytics, design, distribution, a licensed line, a franchised territory, a joint venture. The nine cases are logistics, chips, films, analytics, licenses, and stores, and the pack says on the page that none of them is a manufacturing line, a call center, or an IT contract.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced reversals: Amazon, Shopify, Wayfair, Apple, Marvel, Kroger, Tesco, Burberry, and Starbucks. Each is dated and read through what was outside, which route back was taken, and how it ended, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Apple and Marvel are each two records of one story, counted once, and Mars is held apart as a company that never gave the work away. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack?
- The Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: You gave the work away and want it back; what does that cost now? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, repatriation model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: whether running the work yourself at your own scale is cheaper than the fee, and if it is not, whether what the provider's position costs you covers the gap. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why taking work back is not giving it away in reverse, the arithmetic, the three routes back, and the conditions that stop the analysis. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-three slides for a board or an operations review, with nine sourced reversals and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Repatriation model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate in-house costs across the columns, the one-time cost of taking it back, and the break-even in-house cost and horizon that decide it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next reversal cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced reversals — six held, two are partial, and one was given up within a year — and one record held apart. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the fee, the years gone, the in-house cost at your own scale, the one-time cost, the position cost, and whether the reversal pays. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — The fee, who is left, costing the work at your own scale, the transition, the position cost, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Outsourcing Reversal Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.