Television"s Channel Nine is midway through a consolidation project to move from a sole mainframe system to a globally dispersed, server-based environment.

The project was earmarked following a cost savings review which covered the whole gamut of IT.

When assessing savings, the TV network looked at everything from outsourcing IT to whether it should buy applications or build them in-house and also took the obligatory field trip to India.

Keith Roscarol, Nine"s CIO, said part of the exercise involved analyzing where the greatest risk element came from in terms of whether to outsource or insource, factoring that into the cost savings equation and determining whether the risk was acceptable.

"Do you just take the absolute safe road and look at buy versus build? We did and said we probably should build. We know we will be up for a higher cost over time because we have 60 percent standard kit; that factor usually translates to two times the actual cost of the package, but we can live with that," Roscarol said.

"I would never sprout in-house engineering of a financial or human resources package, but when it gets to the line of business, unless your shop is extreme in commoditization, there are certain areas where you have to take development into your own hands.

"So do you elect for a tier-one system? We spoke to one vendor who said its package will last for 10 years so we decided to run with the tier-two, grow our own material and get to a certain point where we are ready for tier one. Then, you are left with a lot of money in your own back pocket."

Roscarol said that, until a couple of years ago, CIOs tended to play it safe when it came to risk.

He said Nine faced the classic pressure of having to decide whether or not to outsource IT work to sub-contractors as a way of managing overall risk.

The company did not want to pay a premium for risk aversion, so Nine funded the associated cost of the change management process and got a development team in-house, he said.

"Maybe dollar for dollar you would be able to save 10 percent through offshoring as the people on site have to make money from it," Roscarol said.