Top ten list of negative outcomes in IT Outsourcing

Willcocks et al. (1999) have collated a Top Ten list of the main reasons for failure or negative outcomes in IT outsourcing deals and refer to these as risk factors:
1. Treating IT as an undifferentiated commodity to be outsourced;
2. Incomplete contracting;
3. Lack of active management of the supplier on contract and relationship dimensions;
4. Failure to build and retain requisite in-house capabilities and skills;
5. Power asymmetries developing in favour of the vendor;
6. Difficulties in constructing and adapting deals in the face of rapid business / technical change;
7. Lack of maturity and experience of contracting for and managing ‘total’ outsourcing arrangements;
8. Outsourcing for short-term financial restructuring or cash injection rather than to leverage IT assets for business advantage;
9. Unrealistic expectations with multiple objectives for outsourcing;
10. Poor sourcing and contracting for development and new technologies.
(Willcocks et al., 1999, p. 290).