Following years of steady growth, outsourcing is now established as a mainstream activity of the UK's IT industry. A relatively recent variant, offshoring, looks set to have an even bigger impact in the years ahead.

That said, whatever and where ever you outsource, to get the best from outsourcing – and to avoid the pitfalls – you need to heed the many lessons that have been learned, often painfully, during the past few years as outsourcing has matured from a curiosity to a mainstream service. With maturity has come slower growth, though; the breakneck expansion of the industry has reduced recently, but there are some clear trends emerging.

To enable its members to learn from each other's experience in both outsourcing and offshoring, the NCC through its leadership development arm, Impact, arranged a series of nine workshops during the 2005. Each workshop explored a different aspect selected in advance by the members. The workshops addressed contracting, transitioning, retained IS, performance and value, relationship management, governance, offshore operations, legal aspects of offshoring, and the future of outsourcing and offshoring.

This Best Practice Guide summarises the main findings of the workshops. The Guide is aimed at senior executives already experienced in outsourcing who wish to hone their knowledge, and those considering the promise of offshoring. The Guide's author is Roger Woolfe, who facilitated the workshops.

You will receive this as an email attachment: pdf (678KB).