Now here’s an innovative idea whose time is coming. Jon Udell, columnist for InfoWorld, discussed interoperable outsourced business services in his Nov. 21, 2005 article, “Toward swappable Web services.”
Think about it. If certain forms of software or business process can be a service — just like a utility — why shouldn’t we be able to turn off one vendor and turn on another as the need arises?
The idea calls into question how we design our outsourcing strategies, the form vendor due diligence should take, even the kinds of contracts we should be signing with service providers who win our business.
The key, as Mr. Udell points out, is in the interfaces we have with our suppliers. He gives an example of a company doing credit checks. I would think that is a commodity type of service. So why sign on for a single vendor for three years, or five years or longer? As better pricing or a different offering surfaces that we need for the moment, we should be able to switch vendors.
But, as somebody points out in the article, “…some of these companies are making money hand over fist doing things their own way.” In other words, there’s little monetary motivation for the providers to move to a true utility model. That, and the realities of implementing service oriented architecture are still getting in the way of full adoption.
But when it comes, the strategic, legal and governance bits and pieces of outsourcing won’t resemble what it does today.
