For the second consecutive year my company’s IT Outsourcing Survey, conducted at InfoSec Europe 2012, revealed some grim statistics for those who see outsourcing as an effective cost-cutting measure.
More than 40% of respondents believe that costs for their outsourcing agreements were actually higher than originally estimated. Worse still, nearly two-thirds think that their IT outsourcer invented projects to inflate their fees.
Perhaps a silver lining can be found when comparing these results to last year’s survey. Things seem to be improving a bit – in 2011 we discovered that 77% of IT professionals surveyed suspected that their outsourcers “…made up…” work in order to earn extra money.
Still, when only 15% of IT pros trust the work done by outsourcers more than in-house staff – while only 9% of the same surveyed group say that their outsourcers cost less than expected – outsourcing for the purpose of reducing expenses doesn’t seem to be effective.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating here. Organizations that are going to outsource IT operations must choose their partner based on the proper criteria. This means looking beyond the outsourcer’s stated fee, and considering resiliency, transparency, and data security. And since our findings insinuate that work is being manufactured to inflate costs, perhaps the most important quality in future outsourcing arrangements is trust.
More results can be found on the Lieberman Software website.
Are you surprised by the survey results? Share your thoughts by commenting below. You can also follow my company on Twitter: @liebsoft or connect with me via LinkedIn.
The survey took place at Infosecurity Europe 2012 in London. Nearly 250 IT professionals from across organizations of all size participated, all of whom are partly or wholly responsible for an outsourcing function in their organizations.
