Focus on the customer
Many organizations are struggling to make their outsourcing contract and relationship successful. When setting up and managing the governance function of the organization, things quite often go wrong. The author identifies the critical success factors for setting up a governance organization and outlines the pitfalls and opportunities. In all this, the focus is on controlling the in-house service provision.  

Frequently, businesses use a common scenario that makes it as difficult as possible to start a governance organization: they first outsource ICT services, then decide to set up their governance organization. Unfortunately, with this approach, businesses must be active in two fields at once: they must implement the sourcing contract and create the governance organization.

The governance organization or demand supply organization (DSO; in this article, we will use these terms as synonyms) is created with high expectations: that it will ensure that the supplier serves the company well, and that the company “gets their money’s worth.” The expectations are even more exaggerated when one expects the new governance organization to manage the demand as well. This often results in unrealistic expectations and information managers simply waiting for things to happen: “just let the DSO prove itself.”