Michael F Corbett

  Currently, he is the Executive Director of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), a global-membership organization of the field's top practitioners.

Michael Corbett believes that for organizations to capture markets and increase shareholder value they must achieve best-in-world excellence born of specialization, strategically leveraged outside relationships, and constant innovation.

Michael Corbett is best known for his pioneering work on the topic of outsourcing. This work includes training thousands of executives on the topic over the past ten years, producing and chairing the field's premier annual conference, The Outsourcing World Summit, forming and chairing The Outsourcing Research Council, producing and editing Firmbuilder.com, and authoring, since 1994, annual management briefs on outsourcing for Fortune Magazine. Michael Corbett is President and CEO of Michael F. Corbett & Associates, Ltd., a research and training firm dedicated to advancing outsourcing as a powerful management discipline. He is also the author of The Outsourcing Revolution: Why It Makes Sense and How To Do It Right.

Outsourcing has changed the world of business and with it the business of management. Outsourcing enables best-in-world performance. It creates breakthrough thinking through a clearer focus on an organization's core competencies, combined with harnessing the unique capabilities of equally talented and focused outside partners. Seen this way, outsourcing becomes a powerful tool for organizational competitiveness.

Michael Corbett began his work on outsourcing in the late 1980s when, as Manager of Software Service Offerings for IBM, he helped develop that company's strategic business plan for its entry into the outsourcing market. This business plan presented a compelling vision of the enormous opportunity available to IBM for partnering with its customers in the operations of their information systems. Today, IBM Global Services is the largest service organization in the world.

In 1997, Michael Corbett formed The Outsourcing Research Council. The council's research and knowledge-sharing activities became the basis of the outsourcing programs at many of America's best-known organizations, including American Express, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, The U.S. Department of the Navy, Lockheed Martin, Freddie Mac, and Compaq Computer Corporation.

Annually, Michael Corbett's company presents The Outsourcing World Summit Conference Series, the industry's preeminent gathering of leading practitioners and thinkers. Since 1998, the series, which has made stops in the US, Europe, China, India, Australia, and Hong Kong, has been attended by thousands of business and government leaders from across the U.S. and around the world.

Firmbuilder.com, the company's online outsourcing information portal, was launched in May 2000 and has become the 'go to' resource for executives seeking a greater understanding and improved use of outsourcing as a management tool. Today, there are 30,000 registered users of the site with access to over 325 articles and reports on the topic. Firmbuilder.com has been praised by independent sources, such as eCompany Now, for its scope, depth, and quality of information.

Routinely sought as a lecturer and speaker on outsourcing and related topics, Michael Corbett was, in 1996, an expert witness on outsourcing at hearings called by then President Bill Clinton and, in 2002, was invited to testify before the Office of Management and Budget's Commercial Activities Panel tasked with redefining the Federal government's outsourcing policies and practices. Michael Corbett has spoken at events for organizations as diverse as Bell Canada, Delta, EDS, Xerox, Trammell Crow Company, the European Textile Services Association, the People's Republic of China, India's NASSCOM, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline.