Abstract

This IDC PeerScape offers advice for chief information officers (CIOs), sourcing executives, and other business executives for including cloud services into outsourcing contracts based on approaches taken by member companies of the Centre for Outsourcing Research and Education (CORE) based on interviews with 10 CORE member organizations that buy outsourced services from external service providers. IDC worked with CORE in 2018 to determine the impact on IT outsourcing engagements due to the adoption of cloud services, in terms of impact on people, pricing and costs, security and governance, and automation of service delivery. Best practices from three areas of cloud adoption are discussed in the document: security, cost management, and skills gap. Companies created security checklists to mitigate security risks and retain control of security when working with external vendors. They also filled the skills gap and minimized cost unpredictability by collaborating with their outsourcing service providers.

"Organizations using externally managed services need to be planning appropriately for using cloud services in a secure and cost-effective way. Users should work closely with their cloud service providers to better manage costs, fill skills gap, and maintain cloud security. When it comes to switching providers, be prepared and plan for the switch so the transition can be executed smoothly," says John Zhang, research analyst, Industry and Business Solutions, IDC Canada.

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