Just when you thought it was safe in-house...
Jinfo Blog

21st January 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Despite the economic crisis, outsourcing is going to continue to grow, predicts a recent report from the consultant Gartner. Although informed by the IT market, Gartner on Outsourcing 2008-2009 http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=856713 provides broader insights into the drivers behind the practice in the current economic climate, which will be of value to information managers as well. But another new report, from information industry consultant Outsell, foresees outsourcing advancing directly into information managers’ core territory. According to Outsourcing Information Vendor Portfolio Management (details at http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/797), companies that have never had a centralized content-buying function or have closed their library are realising that there’s waste and inefficiency in procuring information resources in an ad hoc fashion and may be looking more to outsourcing as a solution. More ominously, they may be succession-planning for the enterprise in cases where the future of the information management function looks uncertain. Threatened information managers have always reflected that, even if all their search and retrieval work now goes out direct to end-users’ desktops, at least the management of the complex network of vendor contracts remains firmly in their hands.  So is that now under threat too? No, says the report’s author, Joanne Lustig; outsourcing shouldn’t be an ‘either/or’ proposition so much as a smart strategy at information managers’ disposal to augment, enhance or support expert in-house management of their vendor portfolios. ‘Business-savvy vendor portfolio managers we talked with have successfully integrated outsourcing as a smart business move to offload rote, low-value contract management precisely so they can more sharply focus on managing the large, complex vendor contracts that you describe,’ Joanne told VIP.     Exactly the same message comes from one of the Outsell report’s featured companies. ‘Is there any hope left for the in-house information manager?’ asks Lesley Robinson of Prenax Inc, USA. ‘Yes, there certainly is.’ ‘Throughout all previous transitions, the same question has arisen,’ she points out. ‘Whether it is pushing resources out to end users or the outsourcing of vendor contracts, the information manager still needs to manage the processes, find the best deals to meet financial targets and deliver the best services to their business.’ ‘The efficiencies for information managers in vendor portfolio management come in outsourcing the long tail of small, time consuming contracts whilst retaining control of the really big ticket items,’ she confirms. But all this reassurance comes with a warning. ‘As with outsourcing any part of their function, information managers who don’t take a proactive stance, understand the options, and determine which services to use or not to use take themselves out of the driver’s seat,’ adds Joanne Lustig. ‘Information professionals can only strengthen their positions when they look at this as a legitimate business issue and manage it themselves.’

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