Why a sourcing strategy?
IT spend keeps growing, contracts keep getting more complex, and cloud & SaaS make the landscape opaque. Without an explicit strategy, sourcing choices happen ad hoc: contract by contract, vendor by vendor, incident by incident. The result is fragmentation — overlapping services, inconsistent terms, and nobody with a view of the whole.
A sourcing strategy sets out what your organisation does itself, what you outsource, and under what conditions. That decision isn't static: it's reviewed periodically and tied to your business goals.
What you get
- Make-or-buy matrix — every IT service positioned by strategic importance and in-house capability: do it yourself, outsource, partner, or optimise.
- Impact analysis — the consequences of each scenario for cost, governance and risk, calculated and comparable.
- Decision document — a rationale that lets management and the board make and account for a sourcing decision.
The approach
We first bring your current sourcing model, contracts, vendors and costs together into one clear picture. Then we position each service in the make-or-buy matrix and run the scenarios. The project closes with a strategy your own team can carry forward — Digital Sourcing works alongside your team, not in place of it.
For executing the strategy — tendering, vendor selection and negotiation — you can move on to IT procurement & tendering. Ongoing vendor management and governance is handled through VendorManager.nl.
The four steps
A sourcing strategy is not a thick report, but a decision your board can take and your organisation can carry out. We work towards that in four steps.
- Current situation in view — We inventory which IT services you use, from whom, at what cost and with which dependencies. We also look at your own organisation: which knowledge and capacity is present, where the vulnerability lies (one administrator who knows everything, for example) and which contracts expire soon.
- Make-or-buy matrix — We position each service on two axes: strategic importance to your organisation and the degree to which you control the service yourself. That gives a direction per service: do it yourself and strengthen, outsource, partner or optimise. The matrix makes the conversation with management and the board concrete, because every choice is visible and comparable.
- Working out scenarios — For the services where the direction changes, we work out scenarios with multi-year costs, transition risks, consequences for staff and governance, and the required contract form. We also cost the 'do nothing' option, so the comparison is fair.
- Decision and roadmap — The project ends with a decision document and a roadmap with sequence, timeline and owners. Execution, such as a tender or negotiation, can continue through IT procurement & tendering. Want a first impression yourself? Read the article Make or buy: in-house or outsource.
A familiar situation
An organisation with around 600 employees has had its infrastructure in the cloud for several years and uses over forty SaaS applications, from office productivity and CRM to HR, finance and a dozen department-specific tools. Within eighteen months the contracts of the three largest vendors expire, together accounting for more than half of the IT budget, and the governance team consists of four people who mainly handle incidents and renewals. The question is no longer 'cloud or not', but which dependencies the organisation consciously wants to accept, where its own control and knowledge are indispensable, and which renewals should be approached as one coherent negotiation rather than three separate ones. The make-or-buy matrix shows, for example, that management of the core application is strategic yet sits entirely with the vendor, while the in-house team spends much of its time managing standard tooling that could just as well be consumed fully as a service. The strategy sets out the desired division and uses the renewal cycle as the moment to realise it contractually: control and data ownership back with the organisation, standard management to the vendor.
When is this relevant?
- Several major cloud or SaaS contracts expire within one to two years and the choice 'renew, redistribute or otherwise' is open.
- IT costs rise year on year without it being clear which choices underlie them.
- Knowledge sits with a few employees and continuity is therefore vulnerable.
- Management or the supervisory board asks for a substantiated position on cloud, outsourcing or insourcing.
- A merger, reorganisation or new business plan requires a review of the IT landscape.
Frequently asked questions
Which organisations does a sourcing strategy matter for?
For any organisation that depends on multiple IT vendors — public and private. In practice the question is most pressing for organisations with 10+ IT contracts, or an upcoming major decision (cloud migration, contract renewal, reorganisation).
How long does a sourcing strategy project take?
An initial overview of contracts and scenarios is typically ready within a few weeks. Total duration depends on the size of your vendor landscape and the availability of contract information.
Is the advice independent?
Yes. Digital Sourcing does not sell software or licences itself and has no stake in any vendor or solution. The make-or-buy assessment is based solely on your situation.
Is outsourcing always cheaper?
No. Outsourcing often lowers the direct cost of the service, but adds governance, transition and contract costs. For services of high strategic importance, doing it yourself may be the wiser choice. The make-or-buy analysis makes exactly that distinction and costs the total over several years.
What is the role of our own IT team in the project?
A central one. The team provides the substantive knowledge of the services and is the one that will have to carry the strategy. We work in short working sessions with IT, procurement and finance, so the result is supported rather than ending up as an external report in a drawer.
How does this relate to a cloud strategy?
A cloud strategy is a sub-question of the sourcing strategy: cloud is one way of delivering a service. The sourcing strategy first determines what you do yourself and what you buy; after that, per service, whether cloud, on-premises or a hybrid form fits.
Test your sourcing model
Schedule a no-obligation call with Bob Goosen, or start with the free Sourcing Quickscan.
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