Behind the Headlines: IT gurus back damning report on outsourcers

UK IT experts have backed the findings of a Morgan Chambers report which claims large outsourcing firms are failing their customers.

In this week's Behind the Headlines programme, the findings of the report were put to the three-person panel, which agreed that smaller outsourcing companies are better at building close relationships with their clients.

Michel Khan, IT director of Specsavers, admitted he is generally wary of outsourcing his IT. "There is a danger that outsourcing becomes the fashion of the IT industry that it is the panacea to cure all problems," he said.

But Khan agreed that if he does outsource to gain competitive advantage, he would only consider small companies because of the better lines of communication they provide. "I don't see myself going to a large environment for outsourcing, I see working with small to medium-sized suppliers gives us a level of relationship that is much closer and responsive to our business needs," he said.

Richard Sykes chairman of Morgan Chambers, said the relationship between client and outsourcer will become more important. "Increasingly the IT we use gets integrated into the broader processes - for example with a lot of the ecommerce capabilities.

Chris Setz director of Network Professionals Association, added: "The famous outsourcers are going into the business processes - it is a very different approach but a natural broadening of their base. But we still haven't got any accurate existing benchmarks of their success."

You can watch full Behind the Headlines programme in the Retail Channel.