As I sat down to write this short introduction to global sourcing, I did what any writer would do - I checked out the defintion on Wikipedia. Obviously the entry was longer than a couple of sentences, but the opening gambit read, "Global sourcing is a term used to describe the practice of sourcing from the global market for goods and services across geopolitical boundaries. Global sourcing often aims to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery of a product or service. These efficiencies include low cost skilled labor, low cost raw material and other economic factors like tax breaks and low trade tariffs."

 While it's a little dry I was struck by how frequently 'low cost' was referenced. Sure, cost is always going to be a driver, but increasingly the role of the global sourcing function is becoming ever more nuanced.

 As Thomas Friedman discusses in his book The World is Flat thanks to the explosion of technology and global communications we're now in a new era of business - Globalization 3.0. Importantly, as the world becomes flatter it seems that even relatively minor geo-political changes can have a major impact on how and where companies do business. In the last two years in particular we've seen the impact that the global recession and more recently, civil unrest in key sourcing countries, has had on the global economy. To operate successfully companies have to manage global sourcing as an integral part of their overall business strategy.