Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Joze Pojbic



The news out this week is that IBM just landed a 10-year, $324 million dollar outsourcing deal with Bristol-Meyers Squibb (BMY). What is remarkable about this deal is not it's value - $32.4 million per year is not an earth-shattering amount - but it's duration - 10 years is newsworthy.

The deal is for an HR system - a real back-office process - for BMY, so it is understandable why they would want a "set-it-and-forget-it" deal. HR is rarely seen as a strategic process, and system stability and reliability are tantamount.

What is unclear from the posting is how much of the work will be done domestically and how much will be offshored to IBM's overseas units (like Daksh).