Outsourcing is increasing
Nordic companies on average believe that a higher share of their total IT spending will be devoted to outsourcing in 2010 than in the previous year. At the same time they predict falling prices. This shows that a larger share of the Nordic companies IT operations will be outsourced than earlier and that the increased spending is thus not a result of higher outsourcing prices.

Share of companies outsourcing

Outsourcing reduces IT costs but done incorrectly can lead to lower ability to serve business needs. The survey shows that outsourcing appears to lead to lower IT costs and reduced risks for the company. However, it also leads to lower support in reducing business costs or increasing business revenue. A reason for this could be that many companies have outsourced parts of the IT operations that are sources of competitive value for the company, loosing intimate knowledge of the business in the process. This in turn weakening their ability to support the business operations and helping them meet the challenges in the market.

Reducing IT costs not high on agenda for outsourcing. While reducing costs is an oft-stated reason in the media for outsourcing, Nordic companies only cite this as the third most important outsourcing objective behind improving IT service quality and flexibility. This is in line with many earlier studies by Waagstein Research, showing that the desire for lower IT costs is only one of the components of the decision to outsource.