Nexus of social, information, mobile and cloud will impact sourcing: Gartner

Sourcing managers must consider the opportunities and risks presented by the convergence of social, information, mobile and cloud when re-evaluating sourcing options, delivery models and vendors, according to Gartner.

"Social, information, mobile and cloud shouldn't be considered in isolation as market forces," said Linda Cohen, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "The convergence of these forces, which Gartner calls the Nexus of Forces, is what drives real business value. The Nexus of Forces converge in several ways: cloud, mobile and social solutions enable the distribution of information, social media usage and behavior drive mobile and information solutions, and cloud can be a foundation for information, social and mobile solutions."

"To establish the most appropriate sourcing approach for 2013, sourcing managers must take a more holistic approach and understand wider IT service market trends," said Frank Ridder, research vice president at Gartner. "To benefit, sourcing managers must consider the influence of the convergence of the Nexus of Forces on the services sourcing life cycle of activities, rather than considering each factor as a separate trend."

Gartner has identified the following key impacts for sourcing managers to consider:

• Growing cloud adoption will force sourcing managers to reconsider sourcing governance techniques and contracting practices
• Revised mobile strategies, such as bring your own device (BYOD) and mobile applications availability, will expand IT service sourcing requirements as users demand new services
• New information channels, coupled with data management and reliability issues, will make sourcing options analysis and vendor evaluations more complicated and more critical
• Social technologies will change the way that sourcing organizations interact with suppliers and customers, from requirements definition, through contract negotiation and vendor performance evaluation

Social media also presents a new means of accessing talent for application development projects, as well as the potential for areas of product support. Some IT organizations are adopting crowdsourcing as an alternative to global sourcing and other labor arbitrage strategies. If IT organizations can determine what work is appropriate in which environment, and allow for the freedom inherent in this delivery option, the speed and cost of crowdsourcing will start to become a driving force for increased adoption in many IT services sourcing portfolios.