Out-sourcing, co-sourcing and in-sourcing for Website development

In her excellent blog Having IT Your Way, Susan Gramm of Harvard Business Review considers the issue of outsourcing. She provides a very useful matrix explaining when a company should outsource:

She explains that "Value added is defined as work that differentiates the company from its competitors (e.g., relationships with key customers); conversely, business necessity work must be done to stay in business but does not create advantage (e.g., IT call center). Proprietary work is unique to the company (e.g., how information is defined, sourced and used) while generic activities are typically pretty common across the industry if not across most businesses (e.g., processing payroll)." She further adds that "Outsourcing the development of key business systems (not just generic programming skills, but value added and/or proprietary skills ) without provisions for skills transfer creates significant risks for the enterprise. Even if the outsourcer doesn't melt down, continuous outsourcing of value added-type work means that the capabilities necessary for innovation are in the hands of employees who don't work for your company."
These concepts apply to the development of our Website. In so far as it adds value to our core activities (teaching research and outreach) it should be In-Sourced, i.e. we should foster our own capacities for its development. In so far as it is dictated by business necessity (e.g. Admissions) we should outsource. The usefullness of this latter approach has been recently demonstrated by the CEU new Admission Systems based on Embark. We have to further develop this approach in relation to various functions of the Website.