Complementary competences in outsourcing can be outsourced but only to someone trusted due to being technical.

• A. Cannot be outsourced
• B. Must be kept in-house
• C. Can be outsourced but only to someone trusted due to being technical
• D. Only marketing

Answer: (C)

Outsourcing can extend capabilities by bringing in specialised technical skills to support the main activities. When the competences are technical, there are important risks around confidentiality, intellectual property, and reliability if you hand them over to an external party. Because of that, you can outsource these areas, but only to someone you trust and with strong governance in place—clear contracts, service levels, access controls, data protection, and defined boundaries for what the provider handles and how information flows. This approach gives access to needed expertise while maintaining control and reducing risk.

The other ideas aren’t as accurate in practice. It isn’t necessary to say these technical competences cannot be outsourced, and insisting they must stay in-house ignores the benefits of leveraging external expertise. Limiting outsourcing to marketing misses the broader range of technically sensitive areas that can be effectively outsourced under proper safeguards.