Of course when SAS first formulated its approach 30 years ago there was much more talent around than there were positions for them to fill. Smaller companies can find it much harder to build talent at a time when top performers can be highly selective about the company they keep, can practically name their own price, and are free to decide - as many do - that consulting offers a more lucrative and independent career than they can achieve as an employee.

Eric Steinmetzer, executive vice president and general manager of US-based systems integrator Logicalis Contract Consulting Service, says some of the cream of the IT crop are no longer interested in working as employees. His company has had relationships with some of its freelancers for more than seven years. He says freelancers like being able to control their own expenses and working from home where they can leverage a home business status for tax and write-off purposes. Many see contracting as a means to broaden their skill sets or a way to work only nine months of the year so they can spend time with family and friends.

"They can be very independent-minded - some of the best IT professionals prefer to freelance," he says. "We work with one guy who knows more about .NET than the folks at Microsoft who invented the code. A major international financial firm wanted to put him on salary but he told me: 'Eric, I like to ride in on my white horse, fix a problem, make some good money, then go skiing for a couple of months.' He's typical of some of the best software brains in the business."

There's an old saw that IT people work in the industry, not for a company, and CIOs struggling with build, buy or rent decisions must frequently find that saying ringing true. With the supply of IT professionals increasingly tight and with everyone going after the same talent pool, hostilities in the talent war are intensifying, and CIOs have to arm themselves as best they can to defeat their foes. That means performing a difficult balancing act. Should they grow their own, draft their team or barter their way to the team they need on the field? What projects can they afford to outsource? How large a team should they retain in-house, and when they do manage to build a strong internal team, how far should they go to keep them?