How do you ensure a smooth ride?

Koulopoulos says the best strategy to ensure BPO success is to get your house in order before the handoff. "Until recently, the conventional wisdom had been transition before transform," Koulopoulos says. "I'm one of the strong proponents of the new approach, which is more of a collaboration -- transform then transition. The outsourcer should work side by side with IT to identify current shortcomings, make improvements, and then transition the systems. It's more complex but it's less of a black box and it reduces risk."

During the transition IT needs to prepare for future systems, and maintain stability of the current system, says Natarajan Chandrasekaran, executive vice president of global operations at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of India's largest global BPO providers. "They should be reviewing whether we are bringing the right skills, setting up a robust and secure architecture, and whether we're compliant with regulations. The security part of the organization usually gets involved in an audit of security and the background of all employees. They constantly evaluate our plans to make sure we're staying ahead of the curve."

If all goes well, after the transitional stage comes a long period of stability with periodic improvements. This is where monitoring SLAs becomes important, but that's not always the whole story.

"SLAs are really like a post-game injury list," says Accenture's Campbell. "The key to success is good, ongoing communication and solving issues together with data and facts, not emotions. IT has to be represented on the ongoing governance team to understand day-to-day performance issues and to be involved in constructive problem solving."

Tools are arriving to help make sense of SLAs. "There's lots of data coming from systems underpinning business processes with information on whether the provider is living up to service levels," Brown says. "We're hearing more about third-party providers of tools for these purposes."

Two of these providers are Janeeva and Digital Fuel. "We take in lots of data from all different formats, including e-mails, faxes, and spreadsheets, normalize it, and store it in the system for reporting, contract management, alerting, and forecasting," says Janeeva CEO Vinay Gupta. These management tools are particularly useful for companies with multiple outsourcing relationships.

The New World Order

How can IT make sure it's involved in the BPO process, for the good of both IT and the company as a whole? It can start by acknowledging that BPO is just one aspect of the major changes now affecting IT -- and by embracing, rather than resisting, those changes.

"IT often feels threatened by BPO, but should understand that increasingly its best use will be to support core business processes," Koulopoulos says. "IT has to be the one to foster the discussion on the business's core competencies and processes. And it should understand that when you outsource noncore processes such as accounting, finance, and logistics, you create more time, cycles, and bandwidth to focus on the core. That actually makes IT more valuable to the organization. If I were a CIO, I would also be building a lot of competence in sourcing. "

Kenny sees a similar opportunity. "IT is being regarded more as a business partner which takes it out of the data centre and puts it more at the table. The challenge for IT professionals is to get to know the business, have meaningful dialogues with their colleagues in other departments, get to know their issues and how the business can leverage technology."

IBM's Schulman goes further: "IT should get ahead of the game. If there's a dollar of investment, then they should say, 'Put it into the trading system or logistics', not the HR system."

BPO is one of the best chances to accelerate IT's journey from maintaining and developing systems to making direct contributions to the strategic goals of an organization. Of course, disruption may follow: IT staffers that currently support non-core processes may end up with one of the company's BPO providers -- as is often the case with Accenture, EDS, and other seasoned providers. But those who remain will have new pathways to get closer to the heart of the business.

"IT will need fewer people, but more people with relationship, communication, and problem-solving skills," Campbell says. Those skills can be crucial in helping organizations get BPO right. And when extra time and resources actually materialize, working in IT becomes a much more rewarding experience.