Interesting. I can relate to what David writes. I was an IT contractor for an IT company and worked at several large government agencies in DC for a number of years. I was the "lead" for the file and print services group at my last two locations. My impression was that my team were much more efficient than what could have been done by federal IT staff. I'm not dishing federal IT staff, we were just more efficient with a smaller staff with contractually set parameters compared to those agencies that had in-house IT staff. Of course we reported to feds, and for the most part those persons were not inclined to try to work with the contractors as a team. They treated contractors as trash, were insulting, and expected you to provide various "TPS" reports and change management reports that were never read. This created friction between the contractors and federal staff, and I saw it at each place I worked. At the last place I worked the head of security (Federal) was clueless and relied completed on her contractor counterpart, who was also clueless. That fed hated everyone and make all of our work more difficult than it needed to be. For the most part though you get used to it, and it was only really bad at one place I worked. And to be fair I do have some good memories of working in those locations (although most were with my fellow IT contractors). The benefits of outsourcing include SLAs, a defined staff (usually in the contract) and the contracts usually have a scope of work (which can be extended as needed) Cons: friction as mentioned above, "layers" of management on the contractor and contractee side, slow to move into new technology (layers of testing, change management, etc.). Also if your contract ends you're gone, or the next company takes you, or your company moves you to somewhere else. Something else to consider is that in large installations you'll have several IT companies working in tandem. What usually occurs is one company is the prime contractor, and there are smaller subcontractors. Those relationships are tenuous. Trying to get someone fired on another contractor's payroll is not easy. I found it to be exhausting after 10 years and was very glad my wife had a job offer out of town, which she accepted. Now I'm not in the contracting biz, though I'd go back if the opportunity were right. Tom Miller Engineer, Information Technology Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board 757-788-0528
>>> "Andrew S. Baker" <[email protected]> 10/16/2009 12:06 PM >>> LOL Good answer. We'll pray for an A, then we'll get to see it. ASB (My XeeSM Profile) ( http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker ) Providing Competitive Advantage through Effective IT Leadership On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Sherry Abercrombie <[email protected]> wrote: Why did I know someone was going to ask that question. LOL, maybe after the test is over...... On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Bryan Garmon <[email protected]> wrote: are you going to share the paper? On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Sherry Abercrombie <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for all the responses and comments. Essay question paper now written > and will be turned in on Monday when I take the test. > > On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 1:40 PM, David Lum <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I was outsourced. I worked for Textron for about 10 years, then they >> outsourced their support IT staff – server admins, Help Desk, etc - to CSC >> (www.csc.com ( http://www.csc.com/ )). Bryan’s first paragraph described the experience pretty well, >> all the way down to and including “…took 72 hours, prior to the outsourcing >> it would have been resolved in less than a few hours”. >> >> >> >> I worked in the same office working with the same people, but the >> procedure change was excruciating. Case in point (I even brought this >> example up at my interview here at NWEA). Textron and CSC negotiated the >> contract such that CSC charged Textron for every port that was turned on on >> every switch. What does this mean? Imagine any time a new employee is >> hired…”hey we need to find what port on some switch to activate”, and when >> they leave “we need to disable that port”. And what if you need an impromptu >> connection? The guys managing the switches weren’t even in the same state! >> >> >> >> If Textron had a clue, they would at LEAST have said “charge us by MAC >> address and just leave all the ports on” and then CSC could just audit their >> address tables once a month. And don’t think there weren’t a few Linksys >> grade switches coming off the main switches to ad hoc activate some wall >> port because the SLA to activate a port was 24 hours. >> >> >> >> Example 2: Need to reboot a hung server? Cool, but even if the reboot was >> successful and you knew what the root cause was, you needed to attend a 90 >> minute change review board meeting – at least until they got to you and no, >> they didn’t start the meetings with the “quckie” stuff either. >> >> >> >> Example 3: End users weren’t happy that no matter how many times they >> called, they have to give the s/n of their computer, their phone number, >> etc. It turned out to be an effective way to cut down on call volume. >> >> >> >> I am convinced Textron did it for two reasons: Many of their competitors >> were doing it, and it looked good to the shareholders. After two years of >> this insanity none of the numbers I saw ever bore out any financial >> advantage, and certainly my end users to a man were far less satisfied with >> their support. IMO it was a slimy way to spread IT support costs throughout >> all Textron’s divisions because the cost was spread, but the mean level of >> support tanked. >> >> >> >> I left CSC because I couldn’t stand the overhead of doing my work, my work >> life became like NetBEUI… >> >> David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER >> NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION >> (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 >> >> >> >> From: Sherry Abercrombie [mailto:[email protected]] >> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:58 PM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: Outsourcing Discussion >> >> >> >> Guys and gals, >> >> I've returned to college this fall after about 15 years to finally finish >> up a degree I started on about 25 years ago. One of my classes this >> semester is Macro Economics. Last night my professor gave us an essay >> question for a test next Monday that is potentially 50% or more of our test >> grade. The topic is on outsourcing and I wanted to toss this out for >> discussion, input, personal experiences etc etc. The questions I have to >> answer are: >> >> What is the economic justification given for outsourcing? >> Where is the outsourcing taking place? (Obviously, I'm focusing on the IT >> field, specifically technical support) >> What types of jobs are these workers performing? >> What is the benefit to the business? To foreign workers? >> >> I talked with my professor and told her what approach I wanted to take, >> from the end user perspective, and that I had experienced the tech support >> being outsourced. She liked that idea a lot. Obviously, I will be looking >> for other news articles to support my essay. What I'm looking for is >> thoughts, opinions, personal experiences from an end user perspective, has >> anyone here been outsourced? What was that like? I'm just taking an >> informal poll from a group of my peers that I know has had personal >> experience in some way with this subject. >> >> Try to keep it on topic, I did get Stu's OK before sending this, so a big >> Thanks Stu for the use of these lists to help with my exam. >> -- >> Sherry Abercrombie >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." >> Arthur C. Clarke >> Sent from Haltom City, TX, United States Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
