The Post-Offshoring IS Organization

Abstract

In the age in which many traditional IS functions will be taken over by offshore vendors or otherwise outsourced, attention needs to be paid to those functions that will increase in importance and/or need to be developed by IS departments if they are to be effective in this new environment. This article suggests a framework that may be judgmentally applied to IS activities in order to determine if they should be considered for offshoring/outsourcing. The results of applying the framework will be unique to each firm that uses it. However, in using that approach in more than 25 firms, the author has found that most firms will wish to retain a number of functions in-house. Fourteen such activities are discussed in three broad categories: “activities related to external relations,” “activities related to the development, customization, and implementation of systems” and “business and IS strategic activities.”