Outsourcing became quite popular in the 1990's as companies raced to reduce costs by moving non-essential functions out of the corporate cost structure. One of the main methods for doing this was to outsource. The basic business case to move any function to a subcontract was quite simple. Subcontractors that focus only on one thing have probably developed a deeper technical understanding of the process and are more effective. Economies of scale allow the outsourcer to provide the same (or higher quality) service at a lower price.