Some subtleties of IT outsourcing
With great interest I looked at the articles on IT outsourcing, which are posted on Habré.
As the owner is not a big outsourcing company, let me express my opinion on the pros and cons of this phenomenon. Tell us what difficulties you face when working in this area, and how they can be avoided.
Just want to say that I do not want to dwell on the theoretical aspects of building IT systems (ITIL, ITSM). They describe the standards and approaches to which it is necessary to strive (which I try to do with all my might), but which in practice is not quite possible to implement
First of all, I would like to note a completely vague understanding of the term itself in real life. For some reason, IT outsourcing began to call everything that is directly related in one way or another to IT services. What is fundamentally wrong, and causes excessive expectations, confusion, and as a result, the flow of negative to outsourcing, as a phenomenon.
')
Outsourcing is the RESPONSIBILITY for the PROCESS, which is assumed by an outside contractor.
It is the whole process. IT outsourcing - respectively, responsibility for the IT processes of the client company. Process - an orderly and regulated set of actions to achieve the goals. If there are no IT processes, or they are not clear, the task of the outsourcer is to create or normalize them. As it always seemed to me, and in what I am convinced now - only such an approach of “full responsibility for the process” will enable the outsourcer to get the maximum profit and loyal customers.
In practice, we observe a number of services that offer to solve only a part of the problems in maintaining the efficiency of IT systems. I dare to classify them and give my assessment.
The most common and uncomplicated type of service. It is available even to novice specialists, but also experienced and experienced companies do not disdain them. The essence of the sale of time and simple typical actions (recovery-reinstall the OS, virus treatment, "setting up the Internet"). The main danger is that you will be “happy” to travel an infinite number of times and hours, removing money for each challenge. Ideal for individuals, for companies where the IT component is not critical for business. In addition to the advantages in the form of efficiency (although as lucky), the final low cost per month (year), there are also disadvantages. The main disadvantage of working with such companies is that they have no proven technical SCALABLE solutions, and there is no accurate documentation on the facilities. (Why? Maybe we were here for the first and last time). Catastrophic staff turnover (it is emergency to dangle 3-4 facilities a day on your own two not long survive), a low level of technical training of personnel (they have no time to develop, and there’s no time to develop them, you have to go, and a lot of it). The threshold of entry into such a business is quite low. Of the costs: a dispatcher with a direct CDMA number, a visiting accountant (if this also works by bank transfer), advertising in the metro and on the website. From here and the richest number of shades in evaluations of the results of the work of such companies PE-shnik. From "excellent" to "disgusting." All of these gestures from a professional outsourcer, who also underwent a theoretical “ITSM-training” are called “incident response”. That is, departure to the site to solve a problem that jeopardizes the efficiency of the client's business process. True, there are some features - it is vital for an outsourcer (read most favorably) that the incident “closes” as quickly as possible and is the first and last time. Therefore, such “technological tricks” and “know-how” as “thin” terminal clients, relocatable profiles, cloned disk images, etc. are beginning to be used. The essence is one thing - to minimize the probability of an incident, if it happened - to minimize the time to solve a problem.
They are practiced by specialized companies that, after selling or introducing their main product (no matter what - installing certified SCS, implementing customized configuration 1C, selling super-sophisticated PBX, etc.), offer the client an additional service to support its IT processes. In 99% of cases, this is the answer to the client's questions from the series “So, and then you will accompany all this? Or how?". The company has already earned its main money "jerk", and outsourcing is a constant phenomenon, flowing with rare or not very (someone like) emergency rush. It requires a completely different approach, or a slightly different “military doctrine” can be said. And super-professionals in setting up institutional PBXs, or, for example, fashionable Asterisk now may find themselves in a difficult situation (if they take it up at all), designing and configuring a bundle from Active Directory, Share Point and Exchange. You can invite a contractor, but how will further support be provided? And by whom? And what about customer support? And if there are not so many similar customers “for service” after sales of the main product? Recruit staff for them? To train? How to control the contractors who will gradually appear as the client develops and his appetites increase and the complexity of the infrastructure? I doubt that serious 1C franchisees have the knowledge and desires for setting up a VPN under linux, for connecting branches of a client company. Narrow specialization in the IT market will never cancel.
I am answering a completely fair public question - how will a highly specialized IT outsourcer take himself if he has to give the client what he (the outsource provider) doesn’t know how to do? Or in other words, it will receive a change request. And the IT outsourcer will behave as the most corrosive, meticulous, professional, but extremely fair IT director:
IT-outsourcer has the most complete picture of the information system of its client, as well as a no less complete picture of the information technology market. And the last market, he usually knows "from the inside." Therefore, it will be quite difficult for him to “push” an extra option in a project or sell goods that are stale in a warehouse. His choice should be optimal for the client, since the outsourcer will continue to live with him. I do not exclude professional and strong IT departments / outsourcers from specialized companies. I sincerely welcome them with all my heart. But I dare to predict that over time they will be separated into any subsidiary structures with greater autonomy, not only financially, but also “technologically”.
The most common and versatile view in our review. Trading computer company overgrown with regular customers. It is always profitable for customers to work with one supplier, preferably decent and honest. It is always more profitable for the supplier to work with an existing loyal customer. The situation is so optimal for both parties, that only one wonders when such a symbiosis falls apart with a crash. And often by mutual fault. I'm not saying that the phenomenon is massive, but I often had to take on such companies to accompany. The negative development scenario is approximately as follows. At first, everything is going fine. The supplier makes good discounts, and delivers the equipment on time. Then connected maintenance equipment. Naturally, you have to spend more time with such customers. For some reason, very few people decide to expand the staff and turn out a portfolio of solutions. As a result, the computer business itself begins to languish. And directly outsourcing does not really develop. Therefore, for some time, regular customers become “milk cows”. Begin to pay for each gesture. After all, the lazy business must somehow grow and develop. Naturally, the "former love", no longer. Already, the mark-up is higher than retail, and the components are worse, and the deliveries are paid, and an insane amount of pseudo-hours is considered every month. The client trusts, will not check.
On the client side, “Durka” appears somewhat differently. In general terms, it is possible to describe the "barin arrived" syndrome. Naturally, few people make large purchases every month. All preferences from suppliers received for past merits (purchases). At the same time, at first they often slip, and then they go off the hook. “We paid you so much money for the server. Why do we still have to pay for setting it up? ” Well and further, in the same vein. In the end - mutual displeasure with each other. I will not comment in any way. Just witnessed several similar situations.
As in any field of business, there are large players in IT outsourcing. Rather, it is simply the major players who are engaged in IT outsourcing as well. Large system integrators. You can start the eternal dispute, the exchange of opinions and life experiences, the quality / quality of services of such companies. But I propose to save time and recognize that if these companies want it, they will fulfill all promises, contracts, SLAs, etc. They have a base, money, experience, people. They are the only ones who can provide services nationwide. But I would pay attention to one thing - for companies of this size there is a rather high margin of profitability, below which they will not be able to fall. Therefore, it seems to me that this is the source of one of the theses that "good IT outsourcing is very expensive." The second point is that your company must also be an elite / grandeur in order to be able to afford the services of such “giants”. Therefore, a firm of 10 jobs probably will not be interested in such an outsourcer. I also dare to suggest that the flexibility of the negotiation process for non-typical services is reminiscent of an attempt to order pasta with meatballs and compote at McDonalds. Although, as they say - every whim for your money.
I formulated these errors in the form of rules for myself, which I try to strictly adhere to.
80% of company staff should be able to solve 80% of problems. 20% of staff should be able to solve 20% of problems. The owner must be able to solve 100% of the problems. No "stars", "nuggets", etc. Only a batch production, what elite manual work. This is a service. The only indicator of such a product on the market is quality. Therefore, it is better to offer very few things, but to do them very well. Whole company. This implies the following 2 rules.
Documentation and logging. Object documentation, and logging requests and incidents. I will not stop in detail. The forms and technologies of documentation depend on the imagination and temperament of the owner or manager of the company. If this is not the case, the company will not last long, and it will be “broken up” between the technicians who will lead away “their” objects. Especially now, during the crisis.
Training. Do not send to courses and certify. Although this is the perfect option. Just have a clear “curriculum” of advanced training for technicians. And to train not only technically, but also psychologically. Because you have to mainly work with people. From here we get ...
Psychology. A rare professional IT specialist can work with people. There are several difficult psychological issues in system administration:
Your work is clearly not visible and not understood by most users (sitting, sticking a monitor into the monitor all day ...)
Never, never ALL users will not be satisfied with the outsourcing company, the technicians of the outsourcing company, their full-time admin. (He came, did everything, but did not tell the chief accountant's son on the phone why his Internet began to work slowly in the house - get a look full of hatred in the back and snort).
A rather difficult emotional situation in case of incidents (the motherboard on the server burned down - they blame you and your company, the provider’s channel went down - you are also to blame, etc.)
Therefore, for example, I prefer to recruit, first of all, psychologically suitable employees, and then train them. On average, it takes 2 months of intense training and practical exercises before they can be released "into battle" with the support of senior comrades.
Technology. It is necessary to create scalable and unified solutions. Today, the Internet server simply requires packet routing. You can do with a hardware router. Tomorrow will require quotas for traffic and bandwidth for individual users. The day after tomorrow you will need to restrict internet access to some users. In a month, the perlustration of all the mail of some important manager. Six months later, load balancing between the two providers, and a year later a VPN channel between the main office and three branches. Customer fantasy is rich and limitless. It is much more useful to spend time, to understand and configure all these things on Linux, (with training and documentation), than to reshape his IT system for each client request. In practice, it is also cheaper.
SLA and other documents. A person who decides to pay bills for an SLA by and large is “na SLA”. As a rule, his SLA consists of one clause: “I want everything to work for me.” This is his main and legitimate desire. The client is not an expert in your business, so he hires you. It is very difficult to control a non-material thing. In the West, according to the ITSM methodology, they can afford it - with us, with our "explosive" character and rush work methods in most commercial organizations - this approach is very difficult to implement. Since there are no clear business processes under which you can make a good and most importantly honest “Service Level Agreement”. But this does not mean that it should not be. SLA, first of all, should be created to control oneself and one’s employees. And this is his most useful quality.
Prices. The question is quite scrupulous, and now many of them will take me over. But I will allow myself to express my opinion. We need to add up the price. And quite prosaic way. To monitor the market, competitors and honestly evaluate yourself. In IT outsourcing, the main profit comes from the DIRECTIVENESS of technical solutions. Immediately a lot of money in this business does not make money. In order to create a BENCHMARK solution, it was sometimes necessary to spend a lot of effort, time, nerves and money. What then did not stop for several years to save a lot of time, nerves ... And make money. Therefore, I NEVER use the phrases “an individual approach to each client”, and the website has a price list. It is a report to the client that you have already done this, selling my services. And you CAN'T MAKE, BUT FOR "TOTALLY OTHER MONEY".
Availability. The availability of live and professional people on the phone support, and on-site client. Call forwarding IP telephony is fine, as is remote access. But it should be exclusively as an option, as a convenience. You can not bet exclusively on technology. The workflow in the company should be structured in such a way that all the calculations in the SLA are based on the “minor” scenario. If the solution to the user's problems is not 5 minutes after the application “if there is remote access to the computer”, and the next day, if the access failed, but three hours after the application was received. If the problem is solved in 5 minutes “by remote” - fine, but still the number of employees must be in a certain correspondence with the number of clients. "Human needs human".
It seems to me that in the near future the majority of IT companies will voluntarily or involuntarily begin to “flow” into this industry. This may be due to the following factors:
1. Information technology is already very firmly “grown” in the business. To such an extent that the “amputation” of the IT component will mean the collapse of any business. Not the collapse of the actual production, but the collapse of such related components as sales, logistics or finance.
2. In the IT industry, the focus has already begun to shift to services. "Move the box" remained the lot of major players with significant working capital. All others are forced to accumulate and invest either financial capital or intellectual capital. The last to accumulate and "wrap" is much more real.
3. Customers are not interested in buying the hardware itself, it is interesting for them to buy its capabilities, the advantages that it carries for their business and the continuity of work. This in itself means close interaction between the seller and the buyer in the aftermarket period. For the seller, this can be either a negative interaction (warranty), or a positive (additional setting, subsequent permanent maintenance for a fee, upgrades). Naturally, many will prefer the second option.
4. On the one hand, information technologies are becoming very narrowly specialized, on the other - consumers of technology are tired of dealing with a large number of suppliers that ensure the functioning of the entire information system. For IT companies, there are two ways - or close cooperation with each other when working with a common client, not only administrative, but also “technological”, or the development of a full range of services that are necessary for the client. And all the signs indicate that you have to choose the second option. A series of mergers between service providers and goods into a single structure can take place in order to provide more competitive, and most importantly, complete and complete services.
5. Many large companies, especially in times of crisis, will move from recoil, forgive the project, market to the IT outsourcing market. There are many completed projects, there are resources, especially human, there is experience. Why not take advantage of the market, which they also partially created. Moreover, their consumers will prefer to work with them by 90%, since they built these systems.
6. IT ceases to be a cult. Correspondingly, attitudes toward former “clergymen” also change. No one keeps a permanent dentist on staff, for example. All insurance go to the clinic, use outsourcing. Why, then, should there be a permanent IT specialist if the need for his services is sporadic?
I summarize. In the future, the professionalism and range of services of outsourcing companies will grow, as will their scale. For the client, this will mean better solutions, and lower prices for the services of such companies.
As the owner is not a big outsourcing company, let me express my opinion on the pros and cons of this phenomenon. Tell us what difficulties you face when working in this area, and how they can be avoided.
Just want to say that I do not want to dwell on the theoretical aspects of building IT systems (ITIL, ITSM). They describe the standards and approaches to which it is necessary to strive (which I try to do with all my might), but which in practice is not quite possible to implement
First of all, I would like to note a completely vague understanding of the term itself in real life. For some reason, IT outsourcing began to call everything that is directly related in one way or another to IT services. What is fundamentally wrong, and causes excessive expectations, confusion, and as a result, the flow of negative to outsourcing, as a phenomenon.
')
Outsourcing is the RESPONSIBILITY for the PROCESS, which is assumed by an outside contractor.
It is the whole process. IT outsourcing - respectively, responsibility for the IT processes of the client company. Process - an orderly and regulated set of actions to achieve the goals. If there are no IT processes, or they are not clear, the task of the outsourcer is to create or normalize them. As it always seemed to me, and in what I am convinced now - only such an approach of “full responsibility for the process” will enable the outsourcer to get the maximum profit and loyal customers.
In practice, we observe a number of services that offer to solve only a part of the problems in maintaining the efficiency of IT systems. I dare to classify them and give my assessment.
"Computer ambulance"
The most common and uncomplicated type of service. It is available even to novice specialists, but also experienced and experienced companies do not disdain them. The essence of the sale of time and simple typical actions (recovery-reinstall the OS, virus treatment, "setting up the Internet"). The main danger is that you will be “happy” to travel an infinite number of times and hours, removing money for each challenge. Ideal for individuals, for companies where the IT component is not critical for business. In addition to the advantages in the form of efficiency (although as lucky), the final low cost per month (year), there are also disadvantages. The main disadvantage of working with such companies is that they have no proven technical SCALABLE solutions, and there is no accurate documentation on the facilities. (Why? Maybe we were here for the first and last time). Catastrophic staff turnover (it is emergency to dangle 3-4 facilities a day on your own two not long survive), a low level of technical training of personnel (they have no time to develop, and there’s no time to develop them, you have to go, and a lot of it). The threshold of entry into such a business is quite low. Of the costs: a dispatcher with a direct CDMA number, a visiting accountant (if this also works by bank transfer), advertising in the metro and on the website. From here and the richest number of shades in evaluations of the results of the work of such companies PE-shnik. From "excellent" to "disgusting." All of these gestures from a professional outsourcer, who also underwent a theoretical “ITSM-training” are called “incident response”. That is, departure to the site to solve a problem that jeopardizes the efficiency of the client's business process. True, there are some features - it is vital for an outsourcer (read most favorably) that the incident “closes” as quickly as possible and is the first and last time. Therefore, such “technological tricks” and “know-how” as “thin” terminal clients, relocatable profiles, cloned disk images, etc. are beginning to be used. The essence is one thing - to minimize the probability of an incident, if it happened - to minimize the time to solve a problem.
IT outsourcing as appendage to something
They are practiced by specialized companies that, after selling or introducing their main product (no matter what - installing certified SCS, implementing customized configuration 1C, selling super-sophisticated PBX, etc.), offer the client an additional service to support its IT processes. In 99% of cases, this is the answer to the client's questions from the series “So, and then you will accompany all this? Or how?". The company has already earned its main money "jerk", and outsourcing is a constant phenomenon, flowing with rare or not very (someone like) emergency rush. It requires a completely different approach, or a slightly different “military doctrine” can be said. And super-professionals in setting up institutional PBXs, or, for example, fashionable Asterisk now may find themselves in a difficult situation (if they take it up at all), designing and configuring a bundle from Active Directory, Share Point and Exchange. You can invite a contractor, but how will further support be provided? And by whom? And what about customer support? And if there are not so many similar customers “for service” after sales of the main product? Recruit staff for them? To train? How to control the contractors who will gradually appear as the client develops and his appetites increase and the complexity of the infrastructure? I doubt that serious 1C franchisees have the knowledge and desires for setting up a VPN under linux, for connecting branches of a client company. Narrow specialization in the IT market will never cancel.
I am answering a completely fair public question - how will a highly specialized IT outsourcer take himself if he has to give the client what he (the outsource provider) doesn’t know how to do? Or in other words, it will receive a change request. And the IT outsourcer will behave as the most corrosive, meticulous, professional, but extremely fair IT director:
- market research
- technical assignment
- tender
- control
IT-outsourcer has the most complete picture of the information system of its client, as well as a no less complete picture of the information technology market. And the last market, he usually knows "from the inside." Therefore, it will be quite difficult for him to “push” an extra option in a project or sell goods that are stale in a warehouse. His choice should be optimal for the client, since the outsourcer will continue to live with him. I do not exclude professional and strong IT departments / outsourcers from specialized companies. I sincerely welcome them with all my heart. But I dare to predict that over time they will be separated into any subsidiary structures with greater autonomy, not only financially, but also “technologically”.
Computer companies
The most common and versatile view in our review. Trading computer company overgrown with regular customers. It is always profitable for customers to work with one supplier, preferably decent and honest. It is always more profitable for the supplier to work with an existing loyal customer. The situation is so optimal for both parties, that only one wonders when such a symbiosis falls apart with a crash. And often by mutual fault. I'm not saying that the phenomenon is massive, but I often had to take on such companies to accompany. The negative development scenario is approximately as follows. At first, everything is going fine. The supplier makes good discounts, and delivers the equipment on time. Then connected maintenance equipment. Naturally, you have to spend more time with such customers. For some reason, very few people decide to expand the staff and turn out a portfolio of solutions. As a result, the computer business itself begins to languish. And directly outsourcing does not really develop. Therefore, for some time, regular customers become “milk cows”. Begin to pay for each gesture. After all, the lazy business must somehow grow and develop. Naturally, the "former love", no longer. Already, the mark-up is higher than retail, and the components are worse, and the deliveries are paid, and an insane amount of pseudo-hours is considered every month. The client trusts, will not check.
On the client side, “Durka” appears somewhat differently. In general terms, it is possible to describe the "barin arrived" syndrome. Naturally, few people make large purchases every month. All preferences from suppliers received for past merits (purchases). At the same time, at first they often slip, and then they go off the hook. “We paid you so much money for the server. Why do we still have to pay for setting it up? ” Well and further, in the same vein. In the end - mutual displeasure with each other. I will not comment in any way. Just witnessed several similar situations.
System integration
As in any field of business, there are large players in IT outsourcing. Rather, it is simply the major players who are engaged in IT outsourcing as well. Large system integrators. You can start the eternal dispute, the exchange of opinions and life experiences, the quality / quality of services of such companies. But I propose to save time and recognize that if these companies want it, they will fulfill all promises, contracts, SLAs, etc. They have a base, money, experience, people. They are the only ones who can provide services nationwide. But I would pay attention to one thing - for companies of this size there is a rather high margin of profitability, below which they will not be able to fall. Therefore, it seems to me that this is the source of one of the theses that "good IT outsourcing is very expensive." The second point is that your company must also be an elite / grandeur in order to be able to afford the services of such “giants”. Therefore, a firm of 10 jobs probably will not be interested in such an outsourcer. I also dare to suggest that the flexibility of the negotiation process for non-typical services is reminiscent of an attempt to order pasta with meatballs and compote at McDonalds. Although, as they say - every whim for your money.
Now I would like to tell you about the mistakes that I made during the 9 years of managing an outsourcing company.
I formulated these errors in the form of rules for myself, which I try to strictly adhere to.
Rule number 1.
80% of company staff should be able to solve 80% of problems. 20% of staff should be able to solve 20% of problems. The owner must be able to solve 100% of the problems. No "stars", "nuggets", etc. Only a batch production, what elite manual work. This is a service. The only indicator of such a product on the market is quality. Therefore, it is better to offer very few things, but to do them very well. Whole company. This implies the following 2 rules.
Rule number 2.
Documentation and logging. Object documentation, and logging requests and incidents. I will not stop in detail. The forms and technologies of documentation depend on the imagination and temperament of the owner or manager of the company. If this is not the case, the company will not last long, and it will be “broken up” between the technicians who will lead away “their” objects. Especially now, during the crisis.
Rule number 3.
Training. Do not send to courses and certify. Although this is the perfect option. Just have a clear “curriculum” of advanced training for technicians. And to train not only technically, but also psychologically. Because you have to mainly work with people. From here we get ...
Rule number 4.
Psychology. A rare professional IT specialist can work with people. There are several difficult psychological issues in system administration:
Your work is clearly not visible and not understood by most users (sitting, sticking a monitor into the monitor all day ...)
Never, never ALL users will not be satisfied with the outsourcing company, the technicians of the outsourcing company, their full-time admin. (He came, did everything, but did not tell the chief accountant's son on the phone why his Internet began to work slowly in the house - get a look full of hatred in the back and snort).
A rather difficult emotional situation in case of incidents (the motherboard on the server burned down - they blame you and your company, the provider’s channel went down - you are also to blame, etc.)
Therefore, for example, I prefer to recruit, first of all, psychologically suitable employees, and then train them. On average, it takes 2 months of intense training and practical exercises before they can be released "into battle" with the support of senior comrades.
Rule number 5.
Technology. It is necessary to create scalable and unified solutions. Today, the Internet server simply requires packet routing. You can do with a hardware router. Tomorrow will require quotas for traffic and bandwidth for individual users. The day after tomorrow you will need to restrict internet access to some users. In a month, the perlustration of all the mail of some important manager. Six months later, load balancing between the two providers, and a year later a VPN channel between the main office and three branches. Customer fantasy is rich and limitless. It is much more useful to spend time, to understand and configure all these things on Linux, (with training and documentation), than to reshape his IT system for each client request. In practice, it is also cheaper.
Rule number 6.
SLA and other documents. A person who decides to pay bills for an SLA by and large is “na SLA”. As a rule, his SLA consists of one clause: “I want everything to work for me.” This is his main and legitimate desire. The client is not an expert in your business, so he hires you. It is very difficult to control a non-material thing. In the West, according to the ITSM methodology, they can afford it - with us, with our "explosive" character and rush work methods in most commercial organizations - this approach is very difficult to implement. Since there are no clear business processes under which you can make a good and most importantly honest “Service Level Agreement”. But this does not mean that it should not be. SLA, first of all, should be created to control oneself and one’s employees. And this is his most useful quality.
Rule number 7
Prices. The question is quite scrupulous, and now many of them will take me over. But I will allow myself to express my opinion. We need to add up the price. And quite prosaic way. To monitor the market, competitors and honestly evaluate yourself. In IT outsourcing, the main profit comes from the DIRECTIVENESS of technical solutions. Immediately a lot of money in this business does not make money. In order to create a BENCHMARK solution, it was sometimes necessary to spend a lot of effort, time, nerves and money. What then did not stop for several years to save a lot of time, nerves ... And make money. Therefore, I NEVER use the phrases “an individual approach to each client”, and the website has a price list. It is a report to the client that you have already done this, selling my services. And you CAN'T MAKE, BUT FOR "TOTALLY OTHER MONEY".
Rule number 8.
Availability. The availability of live and professional people on the phone support, and on-site client. Call forwarding IP telephony is fine, as is remote access. But it should be exclusively as an option, as a convenience. You can not bet exclusively on technology. The workflow in the company should be structured in such a way that all the calculations in the SLA are based on the “minor” scenario. If the solution to the user's problems is not 5 minutes after the application “if there is remote access to the computer”, and the next day, if the access failed, but three hours after the application was received. If the problem is solved in 5 minutes “by remote” - fine, but still the number of employees must be in a certain correspondence with the number of clients. "Human needs human".
What will happen next with the market?
It seems to me that in the near future the majority of IT companies will voluntarily or involuntarily begin to “flow” into this industry. This may be due to the following factors:
1. Information technology is already very firmly “grown” in the business. To such an extent that the “amputation” of the IT component will mean the collapse of any business. Not the collapse of the actual production, but the collapse of such related components as sales, logistics or finance.
2. In the IT industry, the focus has already begun to shift to services. "Move the box" remained the lot of major players with significant working capital. All others are forced to accumulate and invest either financial capital or intellectual capital. The last to accumulate and "wrap" is much more real.
3. Customers are not interested in buying the hardware itself, it is interesting for them to buy its capabilities, the advantages that it carries for their business and the continuity of work. This in itself means close interaction between the seller and the buyer in the aftermarket period. For the seller, this can be either a negative interaction (warranty), or a positive (additional setting, subsequent permanent maintenance for a fee, upgrades). Naturally, many will prefer the second option.
4. On the one hand, information technologies are becoming very narrowly specialized, on the other - consumers of technology are tired of dealing with a large number of suppliers that ensure the functioning of the entire information system. For IT companies, there are two ways - or close cooperation with each other when working with a common client, not only administrative, but also “technological”, or the development of a full range of services that are necessary for the client. And all the signs indicate that you have to choose the second option. A series of mergers between service providers and goods into a single structure can take place in order to provide more competitive, and most importantly, complete and complete services.
5. Many large companies, especially in times of crisis, will move from recoil, forgive the project, market to the IT outsourcing market. There are many completed projects, there are resources, especially human, there is experience. Why not take advantage of the market, which they also partially created. Moreover, their consumers will prefer to work with them by 90%, since they built these systems.
6. IT ceases to be a cult. Correspondingly, attitudes toward former “clergymen” also change. No one keeps a permanent dentist on staff, for example. All insurance go to the clinic, use outsourcing. Why, then, should there be a permanent IT specialist if the need for his services is sporadic?
I summarize. In the future, the professionalism and range of services of outsourcing companies will grow, as will their scale. For the client, this will mean better solutions, and lower prices for the services of such companies.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/111356/
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