Hello,
Over the years I have worked in both environments (as the company
employee and as the employee of an outsourcing company).
In my opinion it's all a matter of value. If a company does not value
it's data and IT infrastructure enough to see it as part of it's core
business, it will eventually turn it over to an outsourcing company.
They will take care of all the regulatory requirements, infrastructure,
data security and so on, BUT they will NOT provide any extra effort to
go beyond what is documented in the outsourcing contract, unless a hefty
fee is payed. That means all the extras we provided as employees to our
company when we were employed, payed and held resposible will now be
separated into projects, then all the project management will be added
and that project will then be priced at the outsourcer's project rate.
So while the intend of outsourcing may be to cut costs, these special
projects are never factored in the calculations and the company will
quickly become ensnared in political positioning which is not really
productive and never really cost effective. Of course it's the goal of
the outsorcer to aquire such projects, but it will almost certainly
exceed the original budget ot the the contracting company. This way
much needed work will not get done and systems will lack effectivness
they once had, when the whole operation was controlled by the original
company's management.
Some very large companies can afford to spend that money and then some
and turn project control over to the outsourcer with complete trust that
the money spent will be used wisely. Other companies cannot keep up
with that and will eventually attempt to insource the operation. I've
seen both happen, but I can't say for sure who has the better deal at
the end, because I've only seen this game from the bottom up and there
is a lot of smoke screen when it comes to financials.
I found outsourcing can be good for employees who have been picked up by
the outsourcing company, because thy can get more regulated work and
sometimes get expertise and assistance from within that company that was
not available to them before. In very large organizations, the opposite
can be found, because the organization is very fragmented and it's
difficult to find those with the necessary expertise in that large pool.
Never believe that outsourcing is only about money, because it's usually
not. It's more about moving responsabilities and liabilities to a place
that promises to be better equiped to handle them.
Sometimes I use this example to explain how outsourcing should work in
my opinion:
I own a house and I need to replace a toilet, because it's leaking. I
can do the job myself, but I'd have to buy all the special tools, the
toilet itself and with my lack of expertise it will take me the better
part of a weekend to get the job done. Another way is to buy the toilet
at a HOME DEPOT, or LOWES and then hire a plumber through that store to
deliver and install the toilet. That will more than double the cost of
the whole project for me, but the plumbers will be done start to finish
in 2-3 hours and if the toilet leaks, I can call them back the next day
to fix it. The whole responsability for the job to get done is with the
plumbers, they have all the necessary tools, and they cleanup afterwards
(well - mostly).
Now, would I turn over the management of ALL of my houses facilties to
LOWES/HOMEDEPOT? No way, there are still plenty of tasks I can perform
myself, with help from my wife, or a good neighbor. So idealy I pick
and choose what projects I outsource, depending on difficulty,
complexity etc. Cost is not always a factor, since some things we
actually like to do ourselves, others are just too expensive to turn
over to someone else, and some are of a private nature and can therefore
never by done by someone else.
Roger
On 4/20/2015 4:28 PM, Grinsell, Don wrote:
We are currently exploring the option of outsourcing our mainframe environment.
If you have recently gone through such a tred ansition at your shop and
wouldn't mind sharing your experiences, please contact me offline.
Thanks.
________________________________
Donald Grinsell
State of Montana
406-444-2983
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
"The power of accurate observation is often mistaken for cynicism by those who have
not got it." ~ George Bernard Shaw
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