Re: Err, no
There is a difference though - 'IT isn't a department of a company, it is the company'. I seem to remember that was a quote from a long time back from a certain Bill Gates.
In other words, a company needs to own it's own operational systems; data, workflows, reporting etc etc. As a contractor myself I can fully recommend bringing in contractors to improve systems or carry out specific projects etc - but - what they do must be part of the company's systems and fully integrated via documentation, sharing, training etc.
To continue your analogy, if you change your electricity/gas supplier then it makes no difference to your operations - identical electricity and gas comes in. Similarly, if you change your catering you shouldn't have problems; food was supplied before, food was supplied after.
But, change your IT provider and the way every single member of your workforce could be affected.
The problem with outsourcing IT is this.
You either specify in minute detail what you want; Win 7, Exchange, Sharepoint etc etc - and ask for tenders. But what's the point? Same stuff, no chance for providers to differentiate on how to provide desktops, email, collaboration. You pick the cheapest supplier who hasn't thought it through properly - they then struggle as you're not paying them enough. They then provide poor service until they go bust.
So what do you get? Years of poor service and major problems when the supplier goes under.
Or - you say to suppliers - we need Desktop, Email, document sharing, collaboration - knock yourself out with different ways of supplying this and send in your tender.
So you choose between say Win 7/Exchange/Sharepoint or SAP or Oracle or ADempier or PlanGuru . Good luck with picking which would be the best fit for your company. Normally the contract will go to the best presentation - i.e. not a technical choice but one based on a sales pitch. If you could carry out some live trials this would be best - but this rarely seems to happen.
Now you have the battle to get this huge solution implemented and used at your company. Of course, none of them are a good fit - so SAP consulatants at a K a day are need to modifiy SAP to fit how your company works.
If you're really lucky you may be able to get one of these solutions to work well enough - but - and here is an important point - you are now over a barrel. Not happy with the ever expanding cost of SAP - want to tender out and change - say change from SAP to Planguru because you've worked out it looks much cheaper. Well good luck with the switch - changing all your systems and all your technology and all your workflows and how every single member of your workforce works. The cost of the change is so huge that you will stick with the expensive, rubbish service for way too long.
So - DO NOT OUTSOURCE.
Work with your own guys - get some more staff in if you need to. So they can evaluate solutions, carry out some tests, carry out some trials. This way you can even use best of breed and not use a single solution.
An important point is this - things are always changing - new technologies, new ways of selling, dealing with customers, new platforms etc. You need to have a max and match approach - and IT staff need to be able to check out all the options. No huge, overarching do-it-all system is going to fit everything forever - or even for a few years.
For example, say you have Groupwise on Windows server, Android on phones, Win 7 desktops, MS Office, Accufund for ERP/Payroll/CRM and IIS/.NET for the company website (supplied by an outside company).
Then you decide to have better messaging. You could change Android phones to Blackberrys - and put BES on top of your Groupwise. Of course this could be trialled with a small number of users first.
Or say you realise that many users could happily use LibreOffice - again carry out some trials. Brilliant! Works fine. Massive savings on license costs.
Accufund starts playing up or starts getting expensive - look at Sage for your payroll and other solutions. That should shake Accufund up - get you a better deal etc.
See the picture - you are not over a barrel.
You could even bring currently outsourced stuff back in. Company website running slow? External supplier charging the earth for always delayed changes? Then you want a new fangled responsive (works on pads, smart phones etc) site - quote from current suppliers has way too many zeros.
Bring in a couple of contractors, Nginx proxy, Apache, Debian, Drupal and voila - much faster, much better, much cheaper. Get your own web guys to work with the contractors and learn the site. Future changes are carried out by your own in-house staff for a cheaper cost and much faster - no time wasting over contract and quotes etc.
Of course, this comes up against a big problem - changing how management works. They now have to be more hands on and to be able to work with their own staff. No more management by watching sales guys PP presentations and signing huge cheques.
Also, staff need to be valued - paid well, looked after, cared for.
And that, I think, is why we have this madness of outsourcing the fundamentals of a company - it's much easier for management. I know many senior managers are very busy and have to look any many projects, budgets, systems etc - but if they start out with the principle of doing stuff in-house they will retain control of their companies. I suggest they start by having big 'say anything' meetings - look at what existing staff are suggesting - don't get stuck with a one-size-fits-all solution. It might be harder initially to identify staff who can be trusted to run the various parts you need - but once you have them in place should be able to rely on them. Again, if any part is proving problematic, and that particular staff member is struggling they can be helped or re-allocated to something which suits them better - without it affecting/breaking all the company processes.
Generally, as well - look to moving to open source solutions - again, it's about ownership. Want to install a training copy, testing copy etc etc - no extra license costs. Weird bug which is specific to the way you use a solution - you will be able to get someone to fix it. That is the beauty of open source - not cost, ownership.
As an example of what is possible. We've just supplied a document storage and collaboration platform based on Drupal - and the cost was almost a tenth of a Sharepoint cost estimate.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
