Companies typically innovate and maintain hosted solutions that differentiate them from the competition, often with support from the Platform Supplier or a 3rd Party. Ever-changing business requirements drive the rapid innovations of these solutions. Commodity solutions, on the other end, are frequently innovated and maintained by Managed Service Providers and often are consumed “as a service”.

The sourcing/operating models in the IT industry currently are changing as a result of the following:

  • The effort/labour to develop and maintain IT solutions is reduced by using emerging low-code and no-code platforms and by developers increasingly using AI. The business case for outsourcing is no longer undisputed. Improved governance, quality, velocity, and risk are becoming more critical.
  • Companies’ IT Solutions are increasingly hosted on enterprise platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, or ServiceNow or are running in the public cloud. The public cloud and the Platforms are offered “as a Service” by Vendors and Managed Service Providers.
  • As of January 1st, the Dutch Tax Office will enforce the DBA legislation again. Many ZZP contracts will be terminated. The impacted ZZP’ers will seek internal employment or new contracts in which the relationship is not classified as an employer-employee relationship. The way of working of suppliers and the steering by clients, may need to be amended to comply with the DBA legislations.
  • Accountants, CFO’s and legislators increasingly want companies to book Operational Expenditure (OPEX) and Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) separately to improve the Profit and Loss and to be able to fund investments with foreign capital.
  • New legislations such as DORA and NIS2, will require companies to be aware of the risks and the continuity of their suppliers, almost as if they own the solutions that are provided as as service by that supplier.

As a result, as of 2025, it is expected that:

  • Considering all of the above, companies will rethink if and where outsourcing still makes sense in 2025.
  • The Product Portfolio, Product Roadmaps, Enterprise Architecture, Finance, and Risk/Compliance aspects will increasingly (have to) be managed in-house, with support of external consultants that oversee the market trends and product roadmaps. The high-level Themes on the Product Roadmap, trigger projects/programs with epics (fixed deliverables).
  • Companies will continue to outsource innovation and implementation work to Managed Service Providers, albeit now exclusively using Statements of Work for fixed-price, fixed-time projects, that cater for compliance with the emerging legislations. Innovation work done in-house is either done based on quarterly plans with fixed deliverables (and flexible resource quantities) or based on a fixed resource capacity (and flexible deliverables/timelines). The cost for innovation and implementation will be forecasted, booked and depreciated as CAPEX.
  • The operation and maintenance of the IT Solutions will partly be done in-house by employees and agency workers. and partly outsourced based on multi-year “Keep The Lights On” contracts with a pre-defined set of activities with a service commitments. Some companies will include periodic maintenance upgrades in the “Keep the Lights on” contracts, The cost for operation and maintenance will be booked as OPEX.
  • Driven by the enforcement of DBA Law, most Agile engagements with vendors that are currently based on contracts with an “obligation of means” (in Dutch: inspanningsverplichting) will be replaced by engagements that are based on contracts with an “obligation of result” (in Dutch: Resultaatverplichting). Self Employed Contractors also have to adopt the new reality of contracting based on an “obligation of result” or become an employee having a labor contract that is based on an “obligation of means”.

The shift from AGILE/SCRUM “obligation of means” contracts to PRINCE2/SAFe “obligation of result” contracts will invite companies to rethink how to govern and manage their IT.