"Top line" findings from this year's sourcing and vendor relationship presentations at Spring Symposium/ITxpo include:

Sourcing decisions are no longer - and no longer should be - driven exclusively or even largely by the pursuit of low transaction or operational cost. The key driver of any sourcing decision should be its impact on bottom-line business outcomes.

New sourcing models like multisourcing, new vendor relationship models and new software licensing models are emerging that will present enterprises with both challenges and opportunities.

Enterprises must move beyond a tactical approach to procurement, to develop comprehensive, enterprisewide and business-unit-specific sourcing strategies.

No sourcing decision should be made without a clear, comprehensive risk analysis, taking into account operational risks, IT risks, regulatory risks and - where applicable - country risks.

Additionally Gartner predicts that, by 2012, India's dominant position in outsourcing will be significantly diluted by alternative destinations. According to Gartner Vice President Ian Marriott, enterprises considering outsourcers should establish a formal country selection process, with the three top criteria being:

- Quality and availability of skilled resources

- Language proficiency/affinity

- Infrastructure quality and reliability for business continuity

Source: 1

Tags: global+sourcing - IT - offshore - outsource - india - vendor+management

Prashanth Rai