Are IT sourcing Third-party advisors losing steam?

IT Third-party Advisors for sourcing were viewed as trusted advisors and facilitators of IT decions by several large client. We have seen several TPA both global and niche players in the last decade 2000-2010 offering services such as soucring/legal advisory, facilitating bids for clients through their standardized templates/process, information reports, etc. They had played a crucial role in helping clients in making the righ sourcing decisions on the buy side and providing a good marketing/information service for the sell side clients. Hence their role as information intermediaries for the IT industries had worked extremely well.

With the IT industry maturing and their outsourcing services getting commodotized the large question comes to mind if their sourcing services are helping discover value for the outsourcing clients?

The clients on the buy side have the following percpetion about these intermediaries:
1. Makes the bid process expensive due to the long buy cycle
2. Generalist mentality pushing procurement process, legal diligence, etc. while losing the larger focus on bringing value to the businesses that sponsor the outsourcing decision in long run


On the sell side the Being in the IT industry have the following perception:

1. Paper pushers whose primary drive is in filling templates and lack of transparent rating process leaving the IT vendor confused on client buyer values
2. Make the entire sourcing process driven from legal standpoint rather than really driving value-buy decisions for client.


We have been seeing sever TPA in the market either closing shops or getting acquired by larger TPAs (a.k.a consolidation drive). As most of the IT outsourcing services are getting commoditized leaving us with few questions:
1. Are the TPA really adding value to Client buyers and IT vendors?
2. Should client be paying TPA for sourcing advisory services considering most of the information are in public domain?
3. Can this be a free service offered to clients rather than a paid service?