I believe IBM was responsible for the Australian census debacle in 2016. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their reliability, and not the only high-profile instance of them messing things up.
"No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" though.
At any rate, I believe few would contest that IBM in general is a more reliable vendor than Tata, other Indian suppliers or say, offices in Poland.
EDIT: Details on IBM and Australian census. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/turning-router-off-and...
How can they do that and save the client money at the same time?
Because the staff they transferred over are used to train cheaper replacements then laid off after 2 years. That is the plan all along, tho' the staff will never be told it upfront.
But as a rule, Poland, India, ...other cheaper locales don't offer the quality of the US, Israel, ....look to the places where the world's top software/computer chip design/hardware is being designed and built. There is a correlation.
For example, Israel has a population of only 8 million yet creates more original software and startups (purchased by developed nations) than all of India. India buys hi-tech military technology from Israel (and the US).
And typically has them laid off in 3 - 5 years and replaced by IBM offshore resources or subcontractors.
I've seen this happen many times and it's always been successful. They can replicate the business processes they've honed over time whilst keeping that important business knowledge. It's also often better for the staff as they can hand off that knowledge and move internally within IBM to new and more challenging roles without switching employers.
Now they work for IBM, and all the things they did above-and-beyond their job description are now billable. Now their incentive isn't to help company X that they wanted to work for, but to screw company X for every nickel-and-dime because that's where their new employer's revenue comes from. And they know all the skeletons in the closet and all the pain points.
Stab good people in the back and you make powerful enemies, the managers of all the company X's out there never learn this lesson.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/26/ibm_asks_contractor...
Also May 27, 2017 https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/27/is-management-real...
But hey at least Canadian government managers/executives got performance bonuses.
I'd trust IBM over random outsourced coding houses when it comes to IT Security.
for example https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/26/ibm_asks_contractor... doesn't sound like a company I'd want to trust.
What is the conversation that makes this happen? "Yeah, let's go with IBM. The same problems might crop up, but they're a larger company."
The smaller shop have more reasons to try harder and deliver a better result. IBM will just hire the cheapest people they can find and put them under 5 levels of management and good luck with that!