In common usage, the terms offshoring and outsourcing are used interchangeably and have becoming increasingly intertwined. However, there is a critical distinction between the two - offshoring implies the movement or flow of revenue and information across the borders of a country while outsourcing has a broader focus encompassing both domestic as well as foreign organizations.
The chief benefit of outsourcing is that it allows a business to devote its time to creating core functionality in its products while relegating the non-essential manufacturing or data-entry tasks to specialized companies who undertake this work on a massive scale. These auxiliary tasks are then reintegrated back into the final product. In the Information Technology sector, India has emerged as a dominant force in the field of outsourcing. Offshoring is at its core, a monetary concern, with corporations taking advantage of the lower mean salaries in countries like India to lower their production expenses. There are certain industries like automobile manufacturing that have moved entirely offshore to places like China, which is different from the process specific focus, which typically characterizes outsourcing.