Outsourcing provides an excellent means of buying-in expertise and services which also frees management from diversionary issues and allows them to focus on doing what they do best – running the business and making profits. This said, there are several issues connected with outsourcing, not least trust, ability to deliver, reliability and overall business considerations including value-for-money.

Selecting a trusted solution provider should be a pain-staking process because getting the decision right saves money, improves competitiveness and frees business management to pursue profitable avenues.

Assess the Solution Provider’s Business Profile

Before you short-list a solution provider ask the obvious questions – how long have they been in business; what is their relative position in the marketplace; what is their client base?

You should be especially interested in whether or not they have a demonstrable track record in delivering tangible benefits from the projects they have undertaken and the financial strength to continue to support their existing and new customers. Project implementation is usually a minor part of an overall project – ongoing support issues will be the fundamental insurance policy customers will have to ensure the solution delivers the envisaged benefits to the business over time.

Once you have established the basics, you should move on to assess how the potential provider will be able to work with your own core platform and assets. How flexible will they be in working with your existing infrastructure? Do they have the prerequisite skill sets to work with your IT infrastructure and existing team? Do they have the underlying philosophy and mentality to educate and transfer knowledge and skills to your existing team?

Support

Christmas Eve at 11.59pm is a perfectly good time to discover you have a trusted provider with a service standard which delivers what you need – it is not the time to discover the support standard is not worth the paper it’s printed on! No time is ever the right time under those circumstances!

The support services are the real-acid test of any trusted provider you choose to outsource work to, and how they respond to support requests is something you want to get to the bottom of very quickly. You also should not restrict your enquiries to system related events, but look at how well the provider has handled new installations and migrations. Existing clients are a good source of this information, so never pass up the opportunity to speak to them or perform a site visit with them.

Value for Money : Cost

Cost is an obvious factor, however it is by no means the most important – what is more important is value-for-money. A trusted provider who costs you more in terms of their fees, may be a better option than a cheaper competitor because they have access to better software licensing deals or don’t try to lock you in to solution re-buy arrangements after a period of time. Money is obviously an issue for everyone, but you must place it in the context of cost-benefit from engaging their services and not from their bill alone.

Author Bio: Lawrence Reaves is a strong believer in DC IT services such as DC outsourcing and DC network security. For these services Lawrence recommends PLANIT Technology Group, which can be found online at: PLANITTech.com .

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: IT outsourcing, outsourcing issues, IT support