Carters outsource matrix is a useful tool that procurement professionals uses to decide which products or services has a high or low contribution to the organization operation performance and its strategic importance. The matrix segments products/services into four quadrants. These are Eliminate, outsource, strategic alliance and retain.
According to Carters outsource matrix, all product/services that has a high strategic importance should not be outsourced. They should rather be retained in house or carefully chose suitable sup-pliers and go into strategic alliance.

A contract is written or verbal agreement, made between two or more parties that are legally en-forceable. For a contract to be legally binding it must include intention of parties entering into the contracts. All parties must have the capacity to contract or be contracted. They must be of a sound mind, there should be a promise (offer) for performance from the other party and an exchange (consideration) of one thing for another within an agreement for contract to be binding, there must be an acceptance of the offeror's offer by the offeree.
There are many reasons contract can legally be terminated, including non-performance by one or both parties, a significant change in the requirement.
There are several reasons contract can legally be terminated, including non-performance by one or both parties; breach of material, failure to meet service level agreement, ethical breaches, a significant change in the requirement of either party caused by ethical change in the market, change in Demand, obsolescence, contract completion. The procurement professionals should get an exit strategy that should encourage a stress free disengagement should incase there are no profitable reason to continue with the contract.

Topics that are covered within ethics are;
1. Environmental factors
2. The triple bottom line: profit, people and planet
3. Adopting sustainable practice.
4. considering the social impact of organization's behaviors

During the sourcing stage of the procurement cycle, the procurement professional needs to identify and select suppliers to fulfill the business needs. Supplier selection involves evaluating suppliers against predetermine criteria to assess their suitability in working with the buying organization. Suppliers can be evaluated according to Carter's 10Cs which are as follows: (1) Competency (2) capacity (3) consistency (4) control (5) cost (6) commitment (7) cash (8) Clean (9) culture (10) communication.
Procurement professionals can decide to evaluate and select suppliers based on the overall strategy and the business objectives. After that, it most suitable suppliers receive the documentation (Invitation to tender/ request for quotation).

After a need in an organization has been identified/understood, defined, justified and authorized, the next stages are to understand how commodity prices are reacting, which suppliers are available and their strength. The make or buy decision can be reached with knowledge from this; the procurement professional can consider the organization external environment, strength, weakness opportunity and threat to develop strategy/plan of how to achieve the procurement.
'STEEPLE' is an effective way to evaluate the external environment. It helps buyers to assess factors that could affect the need in hand and helps them to develop the plan accordingly. 'STEEPLE' is an acronym which stands for, Social, Technology, Economic, Environment, Political, Legal, Ethical
'SWOT' helps the organization to analyze its strength and within the organization and the oppor-tunity and threats outside the organization.
'SWOT' is an acronym which stands for, strength, weakness, opportunity and threats.