The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World

Let's Get Granular

In addition to being selective about choosing vendors, you also have to be selective about deciding which pieces of your IT portfolio to outsource. Stephen Davy is the CIO of Newedge Group, a global leader in multiasset brokerage and clearing. Newedge operates in a tightly regulated environment, offering complex services relying on highly sophisticated technologies. Speed, accuracy, and great customer service are essential to the company's success, and Stephen is responsible for choosing the right technology solutions and making absolutely certain that they perform.

Stephen's approach to outsourcing is both disciplined and granular. “Instead of defaulting to outsourcing an entire process, we will first look at the key components of the process and determine what we do very well and what can be improved.” His way of determining which steps to outsource and which steps to keep in-house is simple: “If someone else can do something better than we can do it, we'll try to outsource it.”

Stephen recommends taking a good hard look at your processes, “breaking them apart and determining where the value can be derived through better customer service, cost savings, etc.” I admire his discipline and his willingness to dive into the details of a very complicated business.

For example, the company's e-trading platforms are a core part of its business. But the e-trading experience itself is made up of many processes and steps, and not every one of them has to be performed in-house. ...