While HR and learning were once thought to be too complex or critical to business success to outsource, external parties have brought scale and specialization to create efficiencies and drive cost reduction. Gartner estimated the size of the HR BPO market to be $28 billion in 2010 and expects it to grow to $34 billion by 2013 (Brown et al., 2010).
Outsourcing HR and learning functions is now a more strategic decision that should be
made on the basis of positioning and supporting the business for growth, delivering tangible business benefits and driving cost reductions. If organizations want to create and maintain a high performing workforce they must ask themselves, where will future insight and innovation come from? How can they best keep up with best practice and drive value from each step of the employee lifecycle? Outsourcing is a key part of the answer to these questions.