Computer Weekly reported last week that Ben Barry of Coeus Consulting blogged that “There are some services which might be too important to outsource—service integration and management (SIAM) is one example.” Although we agree SIAM is important, the challenges and opportunities relating to service integration lead only to the following conclusion—SIAM is also too important to ignore.

A properly constructed and executed integration layer ties together information technology functions to holistically add value and mitigate risks. If a vendor has appropriate expertise, authority, and incentives, outsourcing the increasingly complex integration function can be an attractive option that may yield results surpassing those that many businesses can achieve using internal resources.

A SIAM outsourcing requires effective governance, management, coordination, and standardization to avoid issues that result from lack of integration. Governance documents should be carefully drafted to provide SIAM market leaders with sufficient autonomy and authority, which align with suitable financial incentives and risk allocation, to achieve these crucial results.