The pendulum of business practice naturally swings back and forth. When every manager has read the book on the benefits of standing-only meetings, returns from embracing the fad are squeezed by competition. Outsourcing is one of the latest tricks to feel the pull of gravity as companies take steps to reverse some of the relentless disaggregation of supply chains that has taken place in the past two decades.

PepsiCo’s desire to reunite with its American bottlers a decade after it spun off the operations is a case in point. Similarly Boeing, already two years late in getting its new Dreamliner into the air, was forced last week to buy one component manufacturer for at least $580m as the aerospace manufacturer tries to fix an ambitiously complex and disparate supply chain.