CIOs Uncensored: Outsource Success

>> 9. Be transparent with your team about the process. Nothing is more demoralizing to a team than rumors circulating about outsourcing and the potential for staffing changes. For any outsourcing I've been involved with, I've strived to be as candid and up front with my team as possible. I've also tried to keep them involved in the outsourcing decision process when feasible.

Don't expect all your team to be supportive of outsourcing, but do take time to tell them what you're considering doing, why, and what the potential impact may be on them. If they're brought into the strategy and understand their role in the process, your team can be invaluable in helping outsourcers understand what they're taking on and can help you recognize the gaps in what's being offered versus what's required to run your operations or develop your project.

>> 10. When possible, offshore to yourself. At Avnet, we do business in more than 70 countries, and each office needs IT support. While we will always maintain IT teams within our regional businesses, we're expanding our offshore development centers. Our IT development operations in Bangalore, India, began more than five years ago, and we invested in Shanghai, China, during the past 18 months. We're now creating a development center in Bucharest, Romania, which will give Avnet support for IT development and operations.

The employees in these offshore centers are woven into the fabric of our IT teams. We look to our offshore employees to provide program/application development and database administration support for our entire enterprise. We established clear software development life-cycle processes and extensive project documentation to aid communications across time zones and languages. Our offshore development center employees benefit from the same training, development, and long-term career growth opportunities as all our IT staff.

A balanced IT asset portfolio has a mix of resources--talented IT management and staff at your headquarters, regional teams that support and are closely engaged with local business activities, and offshore development teams that are integrated into the global IT organization. There's a clear role for outsourcing within that portfolio to support specific projects and/or infrastructure activities where the outsourcing partner has a permanent structural cost advantage over in-house service.

For Avnet, that means greater variability in service costs to better match IT supply and demand. This flexible and diversified approach to resource management helps the Avnet IT team fulfill its fundamental mission: helping Avnet succeed in the market.

Steve Phillips is senior VP and CIO at Avnet. He's also a member of Avnet's executive board and a corporate officer.

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Outsourcing Action Plan