Analyst Watch: Outsourcing Ups And Downs

The initial stages of the seven-year, $5 billion outsourcing relationship between J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and IBM Global Services has included a fair share of misunderstandings, differences, and complexities, said John Schmidlin, managing director and chief technology officer at J.P. Morgan Chase. Schmidlin, speaking to an audience of business-technology executives attending Gartner's Outsourcing Summit conference last week, said those considering big outsourcing deals should anticipate such misunderstandings. "Make sure you have a process in place to deal with the conflicts," he said. Still, Schmidlin said of the deal with IBM: "If I had to do it all over again, I would have done it five years ago."