One example is Sony Corp., the Japanese consumer electronics powerhouse, which recently began outsourcing some of its manufac-turing to Solectron Corp. (Milpi-tas, CA).
Of the 104 companies polled in the Bear Sterns survey, 85% said they plan to increase their outsourcing of manufacturing over the next year. Of those manufac-turers that plan to outsource, 40% said they expect to outsource between 90% to 100% of their final product, "indicating a move toward a virtual manufacturing model in which all of a company's manufacturing would be done by contract manufacturers."