Take 5, April 15, 2011

The five most important pieces of information on outsourcing that I have found this week in my travels through the web.

• Outsourcing – The New Paradigm - “A hundred years ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid…Today, a similar revolution is under way.”  
   -Nicholas Carr, Author of “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World”
• The New Sourcing Paradigm – really interesting article on sourcing and the directions that we will be seeing over the next few years http://www.outsourcingintelligencenetwork.com/oi_prod/index.php?option=com_oiarticles&keyword=&category=&limit=10&limitstart=20 .
• Outsourcing – Offshore vs. Onshore -the data is reflecting a significant backlash to offshore outsourcing and the pendulum is starting to swing back to onshore outsourcing. 
• IaaS – Infrastructure-as-a-Service has been gaining significant traction, turn on and off the infrastructure as you need it and only pay for what you need, we have been working with a client on its implementation with some very interesting and positive results; for more information see Skytap of Seattle.  
• Benchmarking – the new wave of outsourcing deals are asking for benchmarking through an external third party advisory services firms to better inform the client management of the effectiveness of the delivery from the outsourcing services provider, something everyone should be considering for their next outsourcing services contract.