Survey shows IT directors want to lead on outsourcing

IT directors want to keep responsibility for outsourcing contracts, but do they have the right skills?

Most UK IT directors reject the idea of a dedicated board executive to manage outsourcing relationships, despite growing calls from industry experts for senior staff to improve the way outsourcing deals are controlled.

A survey of 100 UK IT directors, carried out by IT market research firm Vanson Bourne on behalf of Indian outsourcing specialist HCL Technologies, found that 84 percent rejected the idea of a dedicated chief outsourcing officer.

Instead, most IT directors argued that they themselves should take responsibility for outsourcing issues at board level, rather than leaving it to finance or procurement executives.

The findings suggest IT directors are keen to cling onto responsibility for IT outsourcing contracts, to retain their influence or to ensure their own jobs are not outsourced.

But Vineet Nayar, chief executive of HCL, said in a statement that it was unclear if IT directors will keep outsourcing within their remit as outsourcing within many organisations continues to expand.

Many experts say IT directors’ lack of partnership management skills contributes the high proportion of outsourcing deals that fail to meet expectations. As a result, they predict say IT directors will face increasing pressure to hand over at least some of their responsibility for outsourcing management.

Speaking at Gartner's European Outsourcing Summit in London last week, Gartner analyst Roger Cox said that increasingly IT directors will not have primary responsibility for outsourcing deals. "IT directors will still be involved in developing [contract] parameters, but increasingly decisions happen at board level," he said.

Even if IT directors retain responsibility for outsourcing they will have to work closer with other executives when managing outsourcing relationships, according to Paul Hoyland of IT services specialist Unisys. "IT directors have to include all the business stake holders who are going to be affected by a decision to outsource and make them collaborate with the service provider to outline what they require," he said.