(a). (i) Emphasis on core competences: An organisation that outsources some of its activities, especially non-core ones will be able to emphasize its core competences on core functions by not concentrating its efforts on routine areas (that can be outsourced).

(ii) Accessing top expertise: By outsourcing, the firm will have the benefit of having access to top talents and state of the art technology without having to own it.

(iii) Growth: The firm can grow more rapidly because it will improve efficient resource allocation within the firm.

(iv) Risk sharing: By outsourcing certain parts of the business, the company will be able to shift certain responsibilities to the outsourced vendor and with their expertise, they will be able to plan risk mitigating factors better.

(v) Reduction in recruitment costs: Outsourcing saves the firm from recruiting people in-house, hence recruitment and operational costs can be minimized.

(vi) Increased efficiency: When a company outsources some of its activities, it is able to share the workload of its employees with the outsourced company. This will facilitate the development of internal staff and also help them to operate efficiently.

(vii) Continuous operations: When certain operations are outsourced, enables the firm to have continuous operation of the business especially where the outsourced company is operating in a different time zone.

(viii) Flexibility: Outsourcing certain activities of the firm can lead to financial flexibility especially during periods of uncertainty in demand.

(ix) Cost saving: Outsourcing some of the firm’s activities to companies in countries with lower labour cost helps the company to save costs and gain competitive advantage.

(b). (i) To improve local decision making: An organisation may decide to decentralise its activities if it desires to improve decision making at the branch or local levels. The emphasis may be on the fact that local managers are in close touch with the day-to-day operations and can make more informed and speedier decisions.

(ii) Concentrate on strategic decisions: An organisation may decentralize its activities if it intends to relieve central management from divisional activities to enable them concentrate on more strategic decisions affecting the organisation.

(iii) To improve communications: By decentralising its activities the organisation reduces response time with communication flow at the local level so that actions be taken more swiftly.

(iv) To motivate branch managers: An organisation that decides to decentralize its activities may do so with the aim of motivating managers at the divisional and branch levels to feel that they are part of the decision making machinery in the organisation hence increasing their motivation.

(v) To develop skills: An organisation may decentralize its activities if it intends to develop managerial ability at the divisional or lower levels because managers at the lower level will have the opportunity to make challenging decisions that previously may be made by those at headquarters.

(vi) To increase competitiveness: An organisation may use decentralisation as a strategy to increase its competitiveness especially if it is serving a diversified and wider market.

(vii) To allow participation: Organisations may use decentralisation as a way to allow employees to be involved in decisions that affect them and their work.