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.