Comment inline On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:05 AM, James Rankin <kz2...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I used to work *for *a major outsourcer, and part of taking on new > contracts was always a major source of hostility and frustration from > end-users and (particularly) those IT staff who had been "transitioned" into > our company.We had "business systems managers" being moved into desktop > support roles which naturally didn't sit with them very well - especially > when they learned that our Prison Service contract meant they'd be spending > an inordinate amount of time in jails rather than swanning around office > blocks as they had done previously. Often staff who used to work for the > now-outsourced company who attempt to trip you up and withhold knowledge at > every opportunity to try and protect their little realms, especially those > who were now seeing their servers and directory services moved to the > authority of the relevant remote support teams. Obtaining information about > the intricacies of applications was next to impossible in some cases. The > removal of administrative access was always a source of great wailing and > gnashing of teeth. > > Having said that, when managed correctly - and not constantly springing the > cost of "projects" onto the customer that fall outside of normal support - > I've seen the outsourced model do quite well. It was, however, dependent on > the quality of the support staff. I've seen some accounts really struggle > without staff who understood how to try and win the hearts and minds of the > end-users. > >> We went through an aoutsourcing attempt about 3 years ago. Mandated at the time by our CEO. We are a fairly high tech dynamic company, and it was the above "constantly springing the cost of projects" that we used to kill the initiative. From a base support, normal operations perspective, the outsourcing was a cost saver. Primarily due to shared services such as tier 1 staff, helpdesk software etc. So we looked at 5 years of history at "projects". With the assumption that our business would remain dynamic, we priced those projects using the outsources change proposal rates. Factoring that in, the 5 year cost of outsourcing was over 2x the cost of maintaining insourcing. > > 2009/10/14 Sherry Abercrombie <saber...@gmail.com> > >> 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? >> > >>> "Cheaper" to go with people/services that is their full time job. They "must" know how to do it better. > Where is the outsourcing taking place? (Obviously, I'm focusing on the >> IT field, specifically technical support) >> > >>> Our initiative was a full scope outsource. The company would not own any IT equipment or have IT employees other than a few managers to oversee the contract. > What types of jobs are these workers performing? >> > >>> Full scope. Procurement, deployment, management, change management, development > What is the benefit to the business? To foreign workers? >> > >>> Supposedly efficiency, with a return to the business in cost savings. > >> 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 > > > > > -- > "On two occasions...I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put into > the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able > rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such > a question." > > http://raythestray.blogspot.com >
