Ruby McGregor-Smith is highly competitive and has recently taken up running, setting herself targets for each race.  It's a similar story in her day job. Running support services firm Mitie means helping clients achieve their goals.  "Outsourcing can help innovate and really let you get more for less," says the 48-year-old economics graduate. "What we're talking about is smarter thinking that saves you money."  McGregor-Smith, who has a speaking engagement in Edinburgh tonight, says an energy contract with one hospital saved enough to allow it to carry out 110 more transplant operations a year. "That's the bit we are really passionate about," she says. "It's incredibly exciting when you can talk to your clients and introduce some quite simple innovations that allow them to think differently about their budget."  It was that buzz which led the former trainee accountant to move into outsourcing, initially at Serco, and then with her current employer.  She rose to the top job in 2007 and is concentrating her ambitions on where she can take the company, hoping to make it a global player.  She points out that outsourcing is still a relatively young industry, having taken off in the UK in the 1980s, and says many companies are yet to be convinced of its benefits. Often it isn't until things start to go wrong that organisations think about changing their approach.  "It's still an industry that has a lot to offer and a lot of people don't understand its potential," she says. "It doesn't always come back to what people fear, which is cuts in jobs."  Mitie's latest growth area is energy efficiency, where it uses advisers to suggest changes to buildings and working practices. Training, and regularly reminding staff to switch off lights, close doors and be energy conscious, can provide big savings. McGregor-Smith says most organisations that have looked carefully at their energy spend have saved up to 30 per cent of their costs.  The recession has provided a boost to Mitie - the FTSE 250 firm has grown every year since McGregor-Smith joined as finance director in 2002 - but since the financial crisis growth has accelerated. Group revenue was GBP1.7 billion last year, up from GBP935 million in 2006.  McGregor-Smith admits that it is budget constraints that tend to make organisations think about outsourcing, but says that once they've tried it, they're unlikely to go back to doing everything in-house, even if times improve.  Tonight she will tell the assembled guests at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce dinner that global recession and climate change have fundamentally changed the way corporations need to operate and behave.  She believes most will have to become more efficient in terms of both cash and carbon.  So far, Mitie does slightly more business with the private sector, where clients in Scotland include Cable & Wireless, RBS, Rolls-Royce and Standard Life.  With the post-recession spending cuts about to kick in, there is a perception that the public sector will turn to outsourcers to help make savings, and that Mitie could enjoy a further spell of rapid growth.  But McGregor-Smith points out that companies who work for the UK government are as likely to require efficiencies as the state itself.  Many in business might expect that the savings to be made within the public sector are larger, due to its perceived inefficiency, but she says that is not necessarily the case.  The size of efficiency savings depends on how much an organisation has concentrated on the aspect of the business it seeks to outsource, she says. If it has built up spending on a certain area, usually a fresh look at how objectives can be achieved will make for a large saving.  She does think that some of the problems around the current public sector deficit can be greatly alleviated by outsourcing. But for Mitie at least, that will continue to be in support services only.  Business organisations such as the CBI have recently argued that almost all the functions of the state should be put out to tender, to give the private sector a chance of ru