December 21, 2011

How to make outsourcing projects work

Recently, the German weekly "Computerwoche" reported on the factors that are crucial to the success of outsourcing projects. According to this article, contract negotiations can often make or break the success of a project. It divides the outsourcing agreement into nine components: request for proposal, award of contract, service description, service levels, remuneration, benchmarking, liability policies, rights of use and intellectual property rights, and exit management.

One aspect, however, that the report failed to investigate in more detail was the choice of a suitable outsourcing model to ensure future customer satisfaction. It is very important to consider alternative concepts that are best able to meet individual requirements before negotiating a contract.

Customers today have a lot to choose from! Possible choices include traditional operation as well as in-house and on-premise solutions. Other options are to outsource operations, move to the cloud, or build a private cloud. Deciding on the right strategy, however, takes a lot of experience. Because even though many outsourcing providers are starting to respond by limiting the duration of their contracts, these are still long-term and above all strategic decisions that have a profound impact on the agility of a company’s IT.

In order to secure the flexibility of the IT organization without taking undue financial risk, REALTECH advises its customers to carefully plan their sourcing decisions and to fall back on the experience of seasoned consultants.

Follow these links for more information:

http://www.computerwoche.de/management/it-strategie/2499933/?r=5616352119507156&lid=152195 (in German)

http://www.realtech.com/sap-managed-services/