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Managing external relationships with a wide variety of suppliers and partners has become critical to an IS organization's effectiveness in recent years. The theoretical literature in this area has looked extensively at sourcing relationships and suggests that there are a variety of different types of relationships currently in use. However, while it explains a great deal about how and when to outsource, there has been little study of the actual management of external relationships within IS. This paper seeks to address this situation by brining an experiential and practitioner-oriented focus to bear on these relationships. Using a focus group of practitioners from a variety of industries, the authors sought to tap into the group's insights to balance the theoretical perspective. Using these two perspectives, this paper describes the nature of external relationships in IS, groups them into categories, and presents a number of strategies for dealing with them effectively.