Let’s think about a situation where your company has outsourced important IT services. Your bills are getting bigger all the time, but at the same time CIO has an uneasy feeling about the outsourced services. “Are we really getting what we paid for? Do we have everything under control?”
When you outsource something, it’s important, that you are still in control of the information.
You can outsource the service, NOT the responsibility.
So before outsourcing, make sure you:
1) Know which IT services are actually business-critical and weigh carefully if they should be outsourced at all.
2) Understand the needs for the service so you can give accurate requirement descriptions for the outsourcing partner.
3) Know what kind of service levels are needed and find a way to monitor that the service promise is kept.
4) Don’t rely solely on reports from the outsourcing partner, but rather make sure you verify all information with your own sources or systems.
5) Have a system where you can keep a close eye on the outsourced services.
This way you’re in control of the IT services and can demand that agreed service is delivered. You can easily create reports for the management and show them the real value of outsourcing.
