There seem to be two competing trends in the twenty-first century that can be summed up as "local versus global." Outsourcing, particularly to developing countries (also known as offshoring), became popular in the last part of the twentieth century as a cost-saving, capacity-building measure for increasing profits.

In the technology industry there are a few fairy tales, that sound like a great idea, listed here in their respective order of annoyance: 1. Proxy clients. While not as bad as some other items on this list, Proxy Clients are still a considerable headache for an IT company. These are accounts that were developed (from a business perspective) by a Broker and then handed to a Tech-shop to felicitate. The Brokers, by and large, aren't too fond of the Tech company speaking with the client directly and therefore prefer for the communication to go through them; therefore the title "Proxy Client".