Outsourcing's A Coin Toss For CIOsOutsourcing's A Coin Toss For CIOs

Many CIOs see outsourcing as a necessary evil at best and a sure-fire path to irrelevance at worst. "We can implement things faster than anyone could with a third party," Linda Dillman, then CIO of Wal-Mart, said a few years ago. "We'd be nuts to outsource."

Dave Zink, former CIO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and now CIO at outsourcing consulting firm EquaTerra, takes the other side of the argument. A 30-year IT veteran, Zink says that outsourcing routine, noncore operations is a way for CIOs to elevate their visibility and influence. The fact that IT departments were among the first to outsource in many companies makes the CIO an obvious go-to person in leading other departments down the same track.

"IT is now a mature outsourced environment," Zink says. "As more and more business units have the opportunity to off-load these nonessential operations so they can concentrate on strategic business interests, the CIO is able to have a major contribution."

A survivor of throat cancer, Zink draws a personal analogy. "When I had cancer, I didn't operate on myself. Companies need to figure out, 'What we are best at is this.' Everything else, why not leave it to the specialists?"

Sounds simple, but CIOs who outsource are essentially relinquishing control. They'd better think about how they'll fill that void.

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