Three Pragmatic Steps To An Outsourcing Strategy

To help companies design an appropriate and efficient IT sourcing strategy, Forrester has identified six basic outsourcing models that fit most outsourcing situations and a three-step methodology that facilitates the integration of all the critical factors that they should consider before outsourcing. This document provides the basic guidelines that help companies identify and assess the influence of the important factors concerning the existing internal IT group: organizational characteristics, the importance of IT for business competitiveness, IT resource management, and IT economics. Developing a strategy through an exhaustive review of all these factors would be too complex and challenging. Forrester instead suggests a pragmatic step-by-step approach to selecting and implementing the right outsourcing model. This research results from case studies and exchanges with more than 50 end user companies and services firms over three years.