Out Sourcing

InternationalOutsourcing is discussed elsewhere and is not the main concern of this page.

OutSourcing has been going on for years without internationalization. In fact, decades ago some companies created spin-off subsidiaries to separately manage IT work. And in those good old BigIron days, one important reason could be to better utilize the excess computing and technical resources that had to be provided on a standby basis.

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OutSourcing of EnterpriseApplications have received renewed interest, thanks to more complex EnterpriseApplicationProblems.

Companies have also been encouraged by their favorable experiences with Web based HostingServices (or ManagedServices?). This is a step in the direction of UtilityComputing.

Another emergent trend is BPO (BusinessProcessOutsourcing). I am still trying to understand whether there are unique characteristics to BPO, that distinguish these from outsourcing of backoffice functions.

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RiskManagement practices are needed

In 2001 a SecurityManagement firm called "Pilot Network Services" closed down with little advanced warning, sending its clients (some are major companies) scrambling for cover as BusinessContinuity for the client organizations were threatened by the abrupt move. See story at http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/networking/story/0,10801,60050,00.html

• another article detailed more analysis of the fallout (e.g. VPN traffic was threatened) and offered planning advice for future. See link at http://www.csoonline.com/fundamentals/security.html

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Resources

ContractManagement? aspects for those interested in RefactoringGovernment (HTML version also available) http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publicsector/ngo/tsyngoguide03.pdf

Preparing the natives to welcome the new allies at http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0,10801,99262,00.html

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Discussions

My opinion FWIW is that we will reach a plateau in the next 12 months. It tends to be lower skilled tasks which are outsourced (ok - generally): those same taks which are most likely to be subject to automation in the future. At some point the latter will have a major effect on the former. By the way, there's an online discussion forum dedicated to outsourcing management here: http://www.outsourcingforum.net

Wouldn't it be processes which are fairly easy to describe and verify, not necessarily low-skilled? For example, debugging a problem where the bug is easy to recreate and describe, but the solution is elusive may be economical to outsource. However, debugging it may require heavy and experienced technical skill. In other words, the most economical solutions to outsource appear to be those which have the simpler inputs and outputs, but not necessarily simple processing (low skill). Thus, they are not heavily integrated into other systems or departments such that they can be worked on in relative isolation. Feb05 by adsl-67-117-46-196.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net

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CategoryEnterpriseComputingConcerns