RE:RE:YELLOW PAGES SIGNS 10-YEAR IT OUTSOURCING CONTRACT WITH CGII am a bit negative on an IT Outsourcing Deal for Yellow Media, depending on what it contains.
For me, outsourcing of anything for a business fits when it is not part of their core business. I wouldn’t expect Yellow Media to generate their own power or get into manufacturing computers just because they use these things. IMO, Yellow should be focusing its talent on its core business, and that is advertising. This involves finding clients and keeping them for the long term, along with retaining existing clients because it is mutually beneficial for them to continue using Yellow Media’s services. To achieve this goal, it is vitally important to keep a competitive edge in the market place. Let’s remember that Yellow Media is a digital market company. This means they must have “better products” than their competitors. And that also means that Yellow must be a leader in delivering these high value propositions for their customers to keep them and to their prospects, to win them over. I believe that IT for Yellow Media is a big part of their core business and it should not be outsourced too much as to allow mediocracy (A disinterested third party should not be making decisions in key areas) to creep in. The vision of what (strategy) Yellow is doing with IT should remain in house. I am fine for handing over development activities or service desk duty to an organization that specializes in doing that work well. It is important to keep the idea generation people as part of the internal organization and ensure they are well motivated.
All just one opinion. Other opinions?