Peter meets ....Gerhold Runneboom

Is IT Outsourcing a commodity?

A subject that will be discussed often during this interview with Gerhold Runneboom, IBM’s Director Strategic Outsourcing Benelux.

According to Gerhold you cannot call IT Outsourcing a commodity per se. Certainly, specific activities can be run like a commodity, e.g. desktop support but IT and Outsourcing is too complex to call it a commodity as some Outsourcing consultants like to do. The IT operation is complex and consists of thousands of components that need to work smoothly together. These components are not static but change overtime when new technologies do come in, when there is an upgrade of hard and of software so whilst you can commoditize at component level it is the integration of it that it is all about. Shortly, IT changes all the time and that is the main reason why Gerhold does not agree with the commodity statement. IT is always on the move and there are always service windows, so “always on”, like electricity, is not the reality with IT.