Paraphrase Regardless of the firm, whether services or manufacturing, management needs measures to assess the performance of its supply chains. The more processes in the supply chain that the organization performs itself, the more vertically integrated it is. If it does not perform some processes itself, it must rely on outsourcing. Some firms outsource important processes such as accounting, marketing, manufacturing, or distribution. Outsourcing is a particularly attractive option to those firms that have low volumes. The outsourcing decision is a serious one because the firm can lose the skills and knowledge needed to conduct the process. All learning about process advancements is left to the outsourcing partner, which makes it difficult to ever bring that process back into the firm. A firm chooses vertical integration when it has the skills, volume, and resources to hit the competitive priorities better than outsiders can