It was a good day for IT services providers yesterday as petroleum giant BP announced new contracts with many of the big names of the industry as it refreshed its outsourcing strategy for the next five years.

IBM, for example, won a five-year contract “to manage and run all of the oil giant’s enterprise applications and integrated service desk responsibilities”. According to the vendor, it was the largest of the contracts awarded.

Indian IT outsourcing companies Wipro, Infosys and TCS all won five-year application development and management contracts from the company, as did technology and management consultancy Accenture.

This week, analyst company Gartner outlined the pitfalls of multi-sourcing (using multiple outsourcing providers to balance risk and cost). When organisations multi-source their IT operations, it said, individual deals can be difficult to build and manage, they often fail to deliver the expected outcomes, and it can be difficult evolve deals into strategic partnerships.

“Organisations that excel in sourcing have seamlessly integrated all providers, aligned all parties behind one goal, developed an agile sourcing environment and achieved business impact through targeted IT spending,” said Frank Ridder, research director at Gartner. "Others who lack the right competencies are more likely to experience sourcing inefficiencies caused by misalignment, idle resources, unnecessary processes, overloaded operations, a heavy inventory, or a lack of focus.”