You do it every day and never think twice: buy something that was made in another country.

Maybe you make a big purchase, like a Honda or a BMW. Do you then refer to your car as your ‘outsourced’ ride? When you drink with your friends, do you get uncomfortable knowing that your champagne has been ‘outsourced’ to the French? How about when you eat a mango or a banana?

Of course not. Germans make better cars. The French know their wine. And produce comes from where it grows (or where people can pick it cheaply…California).

So why think of software that way? Global IT teams support cost advantages and time efficiencies that domestic teams simply cannot compete with. Done right, software can be developed more quickly and efficiently this way. From cars to wine to software, the principle is the same. It will inevitably get done where it can get done best.

As long as we refer to our work as outsourcing, we are stigmatizing something that is as old as civilization. What the monsoon winds did for the spice trade, the Internet does for software development.