In the business world turkeys do occasionally vote for Christmas, it would seem, although some would argue that an agreement forged by parties at opposite ends of a large gun does not really constitute a vote. In any event, a few recent deals between law firms and external suppliers have kickstarted expectations in the IT outsourcing market and, at least officially, the IT directors of the firms in question seem to be saying that outsourcing was their idea.
On the face of it, current economic conditions are pretty good for any law firm to negotiate an IT outsourcing deal. The companies that specialise in outsourcing and running data centres are fairly desperate to shift some product at the moment, along with the rest of the IT industry. But counter to this, how sensible is it to increase your firm’s reliance on an industry that is in a sorrier state than your own? Even if the chosen supplier is large enough to weather a potentially long period of recession, when business picks up, the value that your firm gets from them is likely to decrease as the company focuses on pleasing its most lucrative clients.
