Outsourcing has been around for a long time – in the customer contact industry, for some thirty-five years. Throughout this period it has been governed and defined by broadly consistent and well understood drivers, conventions and presumed definitions of success. Yet the digital revolution and the rise of automation (in its various guises as Artificial Intelligence and robotics) has fundamentally changed the outsourcing landscape – what outsourcing can deliver, how it should be contracted and how it should be assessed.

This paper will demonstrate the true potential of outsourcing as the opportunities it offers and the risks it presents have changed dramatically in recent years. As a result, customer management outsourcing practices play an important role in digital channel adoption and business transformation and therefore, in order to maximise the potential of outsourcing, the decision- making process, along with contract design, implementation and governance, needs to change.