Take some advice from the Premier 100 IT Leaders. These days, top IT executives tend to keep strategic IT architecture decisions close to home. But when a large volume of work provides enough savings to warrant it, they hire outside resources to execute on those decisions.

Topping outsourcing priority lists, for example, are software coding and data center operations. IT executives reason that when such tasks are a core competency of another company, it makes sense to take advantage of its expertise and economies of scale.

Yet IT executives quickly note that outsourcing never means washing their hands of accountability for out- of-house work. Rather, it entails striking close partnerships that are carefully nurtured and managed.

"The horror stories you hear about outsourcing are when you hand over [responsibility] and forget to leave somebody smart behind to manage the deal," says Jeffrey McIntyre, assistant vice president of technology services at BNSF Railway Co. in Fort Worth, Texas.

BNSF outsources its data center and IT operations, including help desk and desktop support, to IBM Global Services . It takes advantage of IBM's volume discounts on equipment and gets its software refreshed every three years as part of the package.