A successful agenda for innovation inside outsourcing?

Bloor Research, in partnership with Steria, have written a series of free white papers regarding off-shoring and outsourcing.

This is the first white paper in this series.

Introduction

A very significant irritant in the world of outsourcing is responsibility for innovation. Because it is easy to assume that innovation in the world of information technology is simply about technological innovation (new break throughs & inventions just waiting to be exploited for gain....) it is equally easy to assume that innovation is something to be delivered by the supplier to the customer. The outsourcing supplier has, after all, been engaged to deal with the technology!

This business model of innovation as ‘something that the supplier will bring to the table’ is thus an instinctively attractive one, and one frequently articulated both in the clients’ outsourcing RFPs and the suppliers’ marketing materials. Extensive customer experience, however, suggests that this model rarely delivers, and hence the widespread irritation.

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