After a generation of outsourcing services to lower-cost providers, smart companies now realize that they need to reassess this strategy. Outsourcing did lower costs in a time of need. But it came at a high price. The total cost of outsourcing — in terms of lost expertise, impact on staff and services, and the failure to keep pace with advances in both equipment and procedures — is incalculable, especially when considering its adverse impact on companies’ future competitiveness. Ironically, those same fundamental economic principles that drove entire industries to outsource in the first place are now behind a new push to bring those capabilities back home. That may be yet another mistake in the making if it means re-establishing the traditional service model for in-house laboratories.