Executive Update

Managing the Cloud Dilemma: To Outsource or Not to Outsource

Posted January 26, 2017 | Leadership |
Leslie Willcocks

Our analysis in this Executive Update builds upon the challenges and risks we outlined in a previous Update, which showed how managers in regulated firms face a quandary: whether to play it safe and lock out cloud-based innovations and correspondingly lock themselves out of related innovations or to negotiate a rocky course, balancing the risks associated with these technologies and regulatory expectations. This Update provides a detailed assessment to help management understand when to strategically engage with cloud technologies and when to avoid them, thereby helping executives balance the need to innovate with the need to manage compliance risk. Our assessment, based on research and data collection conducted from 2014-2016, allows managers to evaluate the criticality of impacted services to maintaining compliance along with managers’ ability to understand and control transparency and supervision over cloud arrangements.

About The Author
Leslie Willcocks
Leslie P. Willcocks has an international reputation for his work on global management, outsourcing, e-business, information management, IT evaluation, strategic IT, and organizational change. He is a Professor of Technology Work and Globalization in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Dr. Willcocks also heads LSE's Outsourcing Unit Research Centre. For the past 25 years, he has served as… Read More
Daniel Gozman
Daniel Gozman is Associate Professor and Director of Engaged Research at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia, and an Honorary Fellow at Henley Business School at the University of Reading, UK. He has acted as an academic advisor to international law firms, analyst groups, and global technology firms. Dr. Gozman has been published in Journal of Management Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information… Read More
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