Chevron: Outsourcing Commodity Processes in a Commodity Business

Abstract

Faced with a large number of impending retirements, Chevron intended to downsize by outsourcing commodity services. In 2004 management recognized that taking advantage of the growing number of services available on the market required new competencies. This case describes how Chevron learned to identify appropriate outsourcing opportunities and how the IT unit - and managers of IT-enabled processes - incrementally built skills around architecture, integration, and vendor management to enable the company to benefit from outsourcing opportunities.