IS/IT Backsourcing - A Case of Outsourcing in Reverse?

IS/IT outsourcing has been a rich source for discussion since the much-vaunted agreement between Kodak and IBM in July 1989. With agreements signed for between 5 and 10 years in general, what happens at the end of an outsourcing agreement, or when the circumstances in an organisation change and the outsourcing agreement is reviewed? In 2005, a survey by Deloitte found that 1 in 4 major companies in the United States, brought outsourced operations back in-house. This option is commonly referred to as insourcing or backsourcing. This article presents the results of a case study carried out within an organisation that had recently backsourced the whole of its IT department. Dividing the phases of the backsourcing process into 'decision', 'transition' and 'operation', each was examined using a qualitative approach that included semi-structured interviews with senior managers of the organisation.