CAS-002 · Question #131
A large corporation which is heavily reliant on IT platforms and systems is in financial difficulty and needs to drastically reduce costs in the short term to survive. The Chief Financial Officer…
The correct answer is D. Strategic architecture will be adversely impacted through the segregation of duties between. Outsourcing IT to multiple vendors with misaligned contract lengths creates staggered transition risks and coordination gaps that fragment strategic architecture over time.
Question
A large corporation which is heavily reliant on IT platforms and systems is in financial difficulty and needs to drastically reduce costs in the short term to survive. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has mandated that all IT and architectural functions will be outsourced and a mixture of providers will be selected. One provider will manage the desktops for five years, another provider will manage the network for ten years, another provider will be responsible for security for four years, and an offshore provider will perform day to day business processing functions for two years. At the end of each contract the incumbent may be renewed or a new provider may be selected. Which of the following are the MOST likely risk implications of the CFO's business decision?
Options
- AStrategic architecture will be adversely impacted through the segregation of duties between
- BStrategic architecture will improve as more time can be dedicated to strategy.
- CStrategic architecture will not be impacted in the short term, but will be adversely impacted
- DStrategic architecture will be adversely impacted through the segregation of duties between
How the community answered
(25 responses)- A4% (1)
- B8% (2)
- C20% (5)
- D68% (17)
Why each option
Outsourcing IT to multiple vendors with misaligned contract lengths creates staggered transition risks and coordination gaps that fragment strategic architecture over time.
While this option also notes architectural impact, it does not capture the compounding long-term risk introduced by staggered contract renewals across all four providers simultaneously.
Outsourcing all IT and architectural functions eliminates the internal team that would perform strategic architecture work - there is no internal capacity freed up to dedicate to strategy.
The architectural risk begins immediately upon contracting multiple asynchronous vendors, not only at the end of contract terms when transitions occur.
Having four providers with contract durations of 2, 4, 5, and 10 years means the organization faces repeated, asynchronous vendor transitions - each carrying risks of knowledge loss, integration failure, and architectural discontinuity. The misaligned renewal cycles make it structurally impossible to maintain a unified, coherent strategic architecture, as decisions made by one vendor at one point in time will conflict with those of another vendor at a different stage.
Concept tested: Multi-vendor outsourcing risk and strategic architecture continuity
Source: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-161/rev-1/final
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