The heavy reliance on third parties to manage the IT would prove a headache for any CIO, but Tame says the situation not only cuts costs, it allows him to deliver projects faster and, in some cases, with more accountability than an internal process could afford.

Take one recent project -- a new boarding and self-tagging manager, in the process of deployment across Jetstar terminals at Australian airports. The software was developed by a cohort of six staff at Melbourne-based Vedaleon.

It helps that they came from former Australian airline Ansett but the outcome, Tame says, was far better than he could hope from traditional outsourcing behemoths such as Tata or IBM.

"Would I get [Vedaleon] to manage my entire operations systems? Probably not," he says. "But could I have them develop a specific piece of software for me? These guys can get it done in a week, whereas it would take everybody else about four months."

Tame is ever-mindful of the relationships required to keep his contractors in line. Each area of technology is clearly delineated from others and combined with a business process that is assigned to each of his five direct reports. From there, the service portfolios are negotiated and contracted to one or more vendors.