"Betting on the House": Value Creation by Insourcing at Crown Limited

While the outsourcing of information technology has featured heavily in IS research and practice, the alternative strategy of insourcing has received comparatively little attention. Insourcing is often regarded as the “default” or “do-nothing” scenario. In contrast, this paper explores insourcing as a conscious strategy requiring ongoing management to deliver successful business outcomes. This paper presents a single exploratory case study of insourcing at Crown Limited, an Australian-based international gaming company. It contributes to the literature on insourcing by identifying how Crown has oriented its IT function and processes to drive value from insourcing. This research suggests that insourcing is not about just replicating the practices of external suppliers at less cost. Rather, organisations that choose the insourcing path have alternate sources of value creation, by building on their close proximity to the business to drive innovation and new product growth, and the ability to match IT and business risk to control costs.