The notion of outsourcing IT functionality is nothing new.  But moving a strategic capability such as enterprise architecture to an outsource provider sounds like a questionable proposition at best.  Never the less, a number of service providers are active in this market, selling services that range from EA organizational strategy, to one-time architectural development, to full on EA service outsourcing.

In the last category, Infosys has been very focused on developing a practice.  With this in mind, it is surprising to read some of the results from their recently published survey on EA outsourcing best practices.

• "Only a very small percentage (4%) of respondents indicated that their firms saw a strong potential to outsource Enterprise Architecture to strategic vendors. Overall, about 6% of respondents indicated that Vendor Management activities of Enterprise Architecture could be outsourced while about 5% of respondents felt that Project Architecture Definition and Architecture Demand Planning could be outsourced."

• "A higher percentage of respondents — over 8% — from organizations with revenues of over $10 Billion, indicated a strong potential to outsource EA. Management of IT standards on EA-specific activities stood out with over 15% of respondents indicating a high preference to outsource such activities to strategic partners."
   

With results like these, Infosys is doing themselves no favors as they try to build their competency.  For most companies, full on EA outsourcing is contrary to running a sophisticated approach to enterprise strategy and IT decision-making.

More information on Infosys EA practices and a summary of the 2008 survey are available here.