"One of the big concerns for TPI is that in the angst and rush to judgment, decisions could be made without fully evaluating the risk," says Mike Slavin, partner and managing director for CIO Services North America at TPI. "Once a firm has made the decision to outsource, it is a pretty hard decision to come back from in the short term."

Because economic uncertainty for 2009 has reached a fever pitch, enterprise IT executives need to be smarter than ever about services contracts. By no means should companies abandon outsourcing as an attractive option, but when looking to strike a deal with a service provider, enterprise IT executives need to take a step back from the need to reduce expenses immediately and think about IT needs a year or more from now, analysts say.

"It's so tumultuous that there is no clear line of sight in terms of when the end of the upset will come. There is still too much we don't know," says Christine Ferrusi Ross, vice president and research director at Forrester Research. "A lot of clients coming up on renewals are being extremely cautious and taking their time to weigh risks and get the right deal for them."

Analysts advise enterprise IT decision makers to research service providers' financials, product road maps, deal flow and turnover. Outsourcers are not safe from the current economic conditions and may not survive the storm any better than others. "There has to be a big focus on vendor risk and vendor viability. The deal may sound great now, but if the vendor goes south in six months, where does that leave you?" Ross says.

Another key factor to investigate is service levels. Talk to providers' current clients and determine if they have begun to slip on service levels or started to reveal gaps in service, analysts say.