Firms think twice before outsourcing
Chief information officers (CIOs) have been warned of an impending shake-up in IT outsourcing relationships triggered by today’s unsettled business climate.
The global economic downturn is making business leaders more cautious, said National Outsourcing Associaton (NOA) board director Mark Kobayashi-Hillary. In some cases, this means that decisions on IT outsourcing projects are being delayed, he added.
This argument was backed by Duncan Aitchison, European president of sourcing advisory firm TPI, which tracks outsourcing deals signed by large enterprises. “The firms that have been taking action have only been cutting projects so far,” he said.
Christian Hesselhoj from outsourcing consultancy Global Outsourcing eXchange said he had noticed businesses are taking longer in their decisions to offshore. “Where a decision used to take three months, it is now taking about six,” he said.
While Aitchison said most outsourcing activity would pick up again in the near future, he predicted the level of application development outsourcing was likely to be much reduced.
