What are your IT outsourcing goals?

A few years ago, we collaborated with an e-commerce startup. Before contacting us, they precisely identified their IT challenges and future aspirations. Recognizing their strength was product curation and not tech, outsourcing was their go-to. They approached us with a clear scope and timeline. We delivered tailored solutions, ensuring a seamless integration and timely project execution. This partnership showcased the power of clear pre-planning in IT outsourcing.

I think assessing your needs must reach beyond IT - you need to consider how the functional groups impacted by a decision to outsource may react; you may also need to consider if existing employees will be impacted which can have implications to HR, PR and other groups; you need to consider what the financial implications may be, for example treatment of an asset vs expense.

In many cases company's can have all models working at the same time and even on the same project. When you have project that plans on leveraging a managed service that is cloud based and engaging an integrator to connect various systems together, you may also need additional staff to manage the program, address change management and communications. When the projects are complicated, having a firm grasp of the various risks and mitigation plans as well as an overall strategy for how the groups will work together and when contracting efforts have to be in place is critical.

As I mentioned in many cases, projects will have multiple models and it is important for all the players to understand how they will work together even though you will contract individually with each party. It is also possible that the various vendors may be engaged by or sponsored by different internal groups so I recommend having someone who oversees all the engagement models/contracting efforts so that there is alignment and cohesion in expectations/deliverables/timing, and fee structures

I agree that managing the relationship(s) is critical. It is almost inevitable that there will be some misses or disputes along the way especially if multiple vendors/technologies are involved. Establishing a solid governance approach with good program/project management that is applied consistently and appropriately to all parties (including internal stakeholders) will help ensure greater success of the project.

Clear Communication plays a very important role at every level. Sometimes the person co-ordinating onsite understands the client needs. Communicating the same to the offshore team is frustrated as the offshore team does not understand probably due to the lack of the wider perspective or it is lost in communicating to the others on the team and hence not getting the results which they are expecting.

While I think reviewing results is important, this is hard to do in a timely and honest manner such that the lessons learned can be applied to future projects. Perhaps consider doing reviews/assessments throughout the project and having a deliberate plan/approach for how those lessons learned can be applied and benefit the next project.

First decide the need followed by make vs buy decision. Mostly the goal is business value delivered at a competitive price as an outsourcing goal. unique capabilities which gives an edge to company not considered for outsourcing rather team built inside the organisation.