Subcontracting Flexibility? Changes in Buyer‐Supplier Relations Available to Purchase

The past decade has witnessed a dramatic change in the scale and nature of production subcontracting in Britain. Recent surveys on buyer‐supplier relations indicate an increase in outsourcing whilst, at the same time, this has been accompanied by a general reduction in the number of firms accredited supplier status. These trends are underpinned by major corporations slimming down for reasons of cost and competitiveness, with vertical disintegration to satellite and subcontract firms. The emergence of closer links between firms, which this implies, reflects wider changes in the business environment, based on the adoption of new attitudes and practices in British industry.