New Approaches to Staffing the IT Function

Your Corporation

Outsourcing Solutions

“… Outsourcing, as a business strategy and a relationship model, has evolved during the past decade to become a dominant force in enterprises' IT strategies... Growing recognition of the imperatives to align IT and business strategy has been a significant driver for the adoption of a "business-focused" approach to IT -- and, thus, outsourcing strategies… outsourcing has gained a broader foothold in some organizations to encompass the responsibility for the underlying IT-enabled business processes and even business outcome…”

-Gartner

Partnership Solutions

Many corporations enter strategic partnerships to

leverage core strengths and enter new markets. Relationships are formed in which organizations

compliment each other’s capabilities and achieve

outcomes that were previously not possible.

Strategic Solutions

Strategic outsourcing is gaining strength in the marketplace. More and more companies are

looking at the activities that add value to what they provide to their external customer and where they need to focus their limited resources to make sure

they make a difference.”

Sourcing Resources

• Employees

• Consultants

• Contractors

• Outsourcing

• ASPs ?

Employee Candidates

+ More readily available

+ Skills & expertise levels higher

+ Seeking security

- Harder to eliminate if “bad fit”

Contractors vs. Consultants

Is there a difference ?

Uncommon Solutions Consultants

• Provide guidance – technical or management

• Hired for discrete task or project

• Leave at end of task or project

• Examples: – System integrator– Internet security certifier

Uncommon Solutions Consultants Contractors

• Provide guidance – technical or management

• Hired for discrete task or project

• Leave at end of task or project

• Examples: – System Integrator– Internet Security

Certifier

• Perform job defined by firm

• Hired to perform a specific task or role over time

• Can be hired

• Examples:– System Administrators– Trainers

Consultants & Contractors

• Engaged when…

– Duration of need is limited

– Requisite skills don’t exist in-house

– Required manpower doesn’t exist internally

Using Contractors

• Benefits:

– Provides quick way to staff functions

– Pushes brunt of hiring effort to vendor

– Off-loads some personnel management responsibilities

– Serves as good source for hiring employees (“Try before you buy”)

– Option during hiring freeze

Uncommon Solutions Outsourcing

• Growth is projected to be high in next 3 years, especially as organizations seek to increase operating efficiency

Reasons to Outsource

• Opportunity to control costs

Gartner

“On an apples-to-apples, service-level-to-service-level basis for typical IT services, an efficient IS organization will show costs less

than that of an outsourced price by 20 percent or more.”

Quality Management

We at Uncommon Solutions consider project management to be one of our

company’s strong points. We have a Software Engineering Process

Group (SEPG) looking into the quality process on a regular basis The

Quality Process in Uncommon Solutions ensures to deliver products, which meet customer needs

deliver these products within specified timeframes

make teamwork more effective

deal with changing customer requirements

raise the quality of the products

Project Management TeamAll our project managers and team leaders have strong development backgrounds and comprehensive knowledge of modern software technologies. Their wide experience allows them to make prompt and sound decisions.

Quality ProcessThough the quality processes at Uncommon Solutions are assessed at ISO 9001:2000, we have adopted the SEI Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM) as a framework for continuous software-development-process improvement. Uncommon Solutions has a definite road map to achieve CMM Level 4 by the end of the year.

Quality Goals

• Anticipate and meet customer needs and exceed their expectations

• Relentlessly improve how we work—to deliver the world's best software solutions, faster and more cost-effectively than our competitors

• Lower cost of ownership, involving systems that avoid cost overruns, are more maintainable, and easer to apt over time to changing corporate needs

• On-time delivery, avoiding the unplanned use of resources

• Meeting service level requirements

Uncommon Solutions Outsourcing Drivers

1. Access to Critical IT Skills

2. Quality of Service

3. Scalability

4. Focus on Core Competencies

5. Capacity on Demand

6. Cost Savings

Outsourcing Drivers

1) Complex and evolving Federal, State and Local regulatory compliances.

2) Increasing demand of IT service availability.

3) Convergence of IP services such as Identity and Access management.

4) Expanding Internet threats such as viruses and Spyware / malware.

Clarify reasons for Outsourcing

Identify and commit stakeholders

Develop Outsourcing objectives and strategy

Perform Cost-Benefit analysis

Define project plan

Develop requirements‘ specification

Evaluation of long list

Conduct RFQ process

Develop short list

Find „Best Fit“ Outsourcing partner

Negotiate and finalise contracts

Define new processes

Develop detailed specification for Outsourcing

Define and implement SLAs and Service Level Management

Prepare organisation for new processes

Implement new processes

Manage Outsourcing Partner

Control Service Level Agreements

Decide on upgrades/functional extensions

Investment decisions

Evaluate results with respect to initial objectives

Evaluate planned vs. actual cost

Review objectives

Review/re-negotiate contracts

Extend/maintain/terminate relationship with OS

Operational dimensionStrategic dimension

Implemen-tation Run ReviewDefine

Outsourcing strategy

Select the Outsourcing

partner

Outsourcing typically contains five distinct phases

The five phases of OutsourcingThe five phases of Outsourcing

It has a strategic as well as an operational dimension with a continuous feedback loop

The Outsourcing strategy is a dynamic process continuously adapting to changing requirements and searching the best partner for a particular issue

The strategic decisions regarding Outsourcing are typically done by the IT sstrategy department

The Outsourcing Strategy must deal with all aspects of Outsourcing as well as the components to be outsourced

The selection of components to be outsourced should be one-by-one based on a business case for each one, i.e. networks, help desk, applications, processes

Selecting the Outsourcing partner must be a process which aims at continuously evaluating the existing and/or new partners

Strategic dimension

Define Outsourcing

strategy

Select the Outsourcing

partner

The strategic dimension of OutsourcingThe strategic dimension of Outsourcing

The selection of components to be outsourced should be done one-by-one based on a business case for each step

Deg

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of b

usin

ess

infl

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Economical potential

Component C

Component D

Component B

Component A

1

2

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5

The strategic decisions regarding Outsourcing are typically done by the IT Strategy department

The Outsourcing Strategy must deal with all aspects of Outsourcing as well as the components to be outsourced

Selecting the Outsourcing partner must be a process which aims at continuously evaluating the existing and/or new partners

The decision for components to be outsourcedThe decision for components to be outsourced

The operational dimension of OutsourcingThe operational dimension of Outsourcing

The operational dimension of Outsourcing is typically done by a project or delegates of the line organisation

For each Outsourcing initiative a Service Level Management must be set up involving all concerned parties

Careful preparation of the organisation for the new processes is crucial

The review process must be a periodic task whereby the Outsourcing results are evaluated against the initial objectives and fed back to the IT Strategy department

Operational dimension

Implementation Run Review

Implementing an Outsourcing initiative requires careful management. Review results must be fed back to the IT Strategy department

Feedback into IT Strategy

What Can / Should be Outsourced?

• Examine technology initiatives re:

– Criticality of the service / function

– Appropriate skills and expertise among staff

– Available/approved staffing levels

What Can / Should be Outsourced?

• To compare costs, get understanding of current in-house costs of service / function:

– Staffing and related issues (training, management, etc.)

– Hardware

– Software

– Space

Watch Out !

“As many as 25% of all outsourcing relationships fail because the client doesn’t clearly communicate its needs, costs exceed expectations, and quality of service is poor.”

Dun and Bradstreet