ABSTRACT
Within the context of an outsourcing partnership it is the provider who must take care of the actual delivery of the IT services contracted for. This provider can be either an internal IT department or an external company, or both. For governance purposes this makes no difference in principle, since all providers must pay governance thorough attention in order to be able to guarantee proper service delivery (Lacity and Hirschheim 1995). This includes developments facing the service recipient (the external focus, from the provider’s point of view) and the manner in which the services will be delivered (the internal focus) (Cullen and Willcocks 2003). In Chapter 5, four provider-side governance factors were identified: a clear and consistent market position; a front office; a back office; and the availability of IT professionals.
