…. the one eyed man is king

So goes the famous saying and its particularly appropriate when it comes to IT outsourcing.

According to a report from Warwick Business School for IT Services firm Cognizant, the majority of CIO’s AND CFO’ s interviewed claimed that they lacked the tools and methods to effectively measure business value and the return on investment (RoI) from outsourcing activities despite spending between $5m and $100m (£3m and £61m) each year on such initiatives.

The old adages of “never outsource simply for cost”, “never outsource a problem” and “never outsource something you cant manage and measure yourself” have never been more true and ignoring these fundementals has lead to a well trodden path of outsourcing disasters. With that in mind, the finding from this report must raise surely some eyebrows. Our industry has been at this for almost a decade now  so shouldn’t we be alarmed that this report concludes that management and measurement disciplines remains so vague ?.

One thing is certain, the outsourcers know how to make money and how to measure ROI on their side so a customer has to line up comparable (or better)  skills and expertise on their side if they are going to see the business benefits and make the relationship work.

As usual, JMHO so all comments welcome