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With all the talk about companies becoming more “agile” and outsourcing their IT operations to service providers, there's an interesting counter-trend starting to develop. While technology companies appear to be holding off on hiring because of economic fears, companies in sectors like healthcare and retail are moving to build their IT teams, in some cases reversing course on a strategy of outsourcing as much of their IT operations as possible.

Earlier this month, Best Buy announced that it would triple the size of the company's in-house IT staff by hiring 200 more tech professionals over the next year. Best Buy had largely outsourced IT operations, but the company's recently-hired CIO Jody Davis has reversed course. Davis told Retail Info System News, "We now want [to hire] talent as Best Buy employees. We need to develop a strategy of what we're going to build. We like to take control of our destiny."

Yes, many companies have shed services like e-mail, data center operations, and even desktop support to managed service providers, and have moved toward hiring IT contractors to handle application development and maintenance tasks—opting to focus on their “differentiators” to be more competitive. But over the past year, competition for IT skills has become increasingly fierce, and many companies are realizing that IT isn't just a support service—it's core to their business' future. And to take control of that future, HR professionals and recruiters say, more companies are looking to lock in IT professionals with the golden handcuffs of statutory employment.


Dheeraj Bharadwaj , human resources vice president at Atlanta-based IT solutions provider NIIT Technologies, told Ars that more companies are building up their internal IT staff and insourcing projects because they're looking for a more reliable and predictable pool of talent. Having a stronger internal IT team to lead projects “drives a high percentage of predictability in success,” he said, because “dependability, understanding of organization in quick judgments and knowledge of where to tap for resources are big advantages.”

By Sean Gallagher

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http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/now-hiring-companies-move-away-from-outsourcing-to-control-their-it-destiny.ars

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