Implementing Core IS Capabilities:: Feeny–Willcocks IT Governance and Management Framework Revisited

In 1998, Feeny and Willcocks published a core IS capabilities framework suggesting four tasks and nine capabilities for any future IT function. This paper revisits the framework, examining the challenges and learning points from its implementation in three organizations from 2000 to 2005. The cases, studied longitudinally, involved a medium-sized organization beginning to outsource, and a multinational and a national bank with international interests, both of which were several years into large-scale outsourcing arrangements. Longitudinal research revealed a range of omissions and resulting problems and underlined the importance of: retaining enough architecture planning and technical doing capability; ensuring future, business-oriented leadership tasks are fully resourced together with succession planning for these; ensuring informed buying and other capabilities to manage external supply and leverage business value from supplier performance are built; and ensuring that operational lynch-pin tasks such as relationship building (to business units) and contract facilitation are in place. In comparing findings for a medium-sized organization with those from two large-scale outsourcing contracts, the study notes the different challenges arising in organizations of different size and at different stages in their sourcing strategies.