Are managed services right for your business?
All business has become global. Companies of any size can now
market products and services worldwide over the Internet. At the same
time, competition has intensified because customers can investigate
global competitors with a few clicks of a mouse.
To compete effectively in a global market, companies need new capabilities:
- Global procurement and sales 24 hours a day
- Integrated internal and external business processes
- Up-to-the-minute access to sales, order processing, production, and other
business critical information required for informed decision making
- Flexible processes that can adapt dynamically to changes in the business
climate
Meeting these challenges requires a fast, reliable, and secure IP network.
However, maintaining the IP network requires regular, ongoing investments in
networking infrastructure and IT staff training.
Many companies find it expensive
to keep up with new technologies—or simply prefer to devote IT resources to the
core business rather than ongoing network management.
Managed services bridge the gap by giving companies access to leading
network technologies and management expertise without requiring high initial
capital expenditures (CapEx) or ongoing investments in technology upgrades.
Key Benefits of Managed
Services
-Reduces costs, including traditional
service fees, hardware, IT
operations, and transport
-Eases adoption of new business
processes
-Increases levels of support and
network availability without
additional staff
-Makes the IT budget more stable
and predictable
-Provides access to the latest
technology with limited risk
-Provides access to an enhanced
skills base
-Makes it easier to adapt to
changing business conditions
-Enables the IT group to focus on
the core business
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Managing Outsourcing computerworld.com
John Golden doesn't have to look very far to see just what can happen when an outsourcing project goes awry.
As CIO and executive vice president at $13 billion CNA Financial Corp. in Chicago, he had to pull the plug last March on a $20 million application upgrade project that an Indian firm was working on, because it wasn't delivering the expected cost or performance benefits.
"We weren't getting any value at all for the amount of money we were spending," Golden says. "I was going to end up with a system that had no additional functionality from the one we'd had since 1994."
His decision to kill the massive project is emblematic of the tough choices IT leaders face when farming out technology work. Yet the substantial cost benefits and flexibility that outsourcing promises have resulted in a sharp rise in the number of jobs being handed over to third parties. In fact, 31% of this year's Premier 100 IT Leaders reported an increase in their contract-labor budgets (by 19%, on average).
The trend toward outsourcing requires IT executives to apply their leadership smarts in a variety of sticky situations. Here are some of their tips on everything from how to cope with choosing vendors and negotiating contracts to laying off employees and dealing with shattered morale.
Choose the Right Vendor
Outsourcing is a long-term relationship, and choosing the right vendor is crucial to meeting your technology, business and financial objectives, says Martin Cole, global managing partner of outsourcing and infrastructure delivery at Accenture Ltd. and a 2003 Premier 100 IT Leader honoree. As both a provider and customer of outsourced services, Cole says you should base your decision on a vendor's industry knowledge, technical competency, financial solvency and service-delivery infrastructure.
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In this issue:
• Managing Outsourcing
• Are managed services right for you?
• Highlighted partners
• Hurricane proof your PC
• Top IT fields
• Techcess on the Air
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Hurricane proof your PC
72 hours before landfall
- Implement any in-house Business Continuity plans.
- Ensure you have supplies needed to protect equipment (surge protectors, UPS systems, heavy duty plastic, and duct tape).
- Ensure that your backup data is transportable. For example, if you are backing up your data to another drive on the server, you will need transportable storage such as a USB hard drive or tape drive.
- Identify critical data on workstations that needs to be backed up. These files can be either transferred to the server for backup, or backed up on an individual basis with CD writers or flash media.
24 hours before landfall
- Make a full backup of critical data to be taken offsite prior to leaving for the day. This can be on a USB hard drive or tape, or even burned on to CDs/DVDs if space permits. Make sure any critical data on workstations is protected as well. Techcess Group will perform our standard backups, but you can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your data. Contact Techcess Group if you have any questions on this process.
- Shut down all servers and workstations and unplug them. Power fluctuations that occur during storms can cause serious damage to computer equipment.
- If possible ensure the safety of your equipment by placing computers/servers under furniture that can withstand falling debris, such as a table or desk. If you are on the first floor, be sure not to put equipment directly on the floor due to the risk of flood damage. It is also a good idea to move computers away from windows, and after removing power from the computer, cover them with vinyl or plastic if possible…heavy duty garbage bags and duct tape will suffice.
After the storm
- Do not plug in any computers or electrical devices of any kind that have been exposed to water or other contaminants.
- Take care when using undamaged equipment on emergency power such as generators. This power may be “dirty” – subject to voltage fluctuations which can seriously damage your equipment or cause unexpected power loss. If you have high-quality surge protectors and/or UPS systems (Uninterruptable Power Supply) use them.
- In the initial days that the power grid is being restored, expect possible power fluctuations, so save work at regular intervals and check backups to help mitigate data loss.
- Most importantly, remember that your safety comes first!
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Study: Six IT fields in top 20 recession-proof professions Computerworld.com
With the economy in upheaval, here are some areas where you may want to polish your job skills
If you want to stay employed in IT amid the economic uncertainty, look for jobs in software design and development, networking and systems administration, software implementation analysis, testing and quality assurance, database administration and general IT management with cutting-edge mobile IT and Web 2.0 skills.
Those are the hottest IT job fields today, according to a new report on the "Top 20 Most Recession-Proof Professions," released late last week by McLean, Va.-based online job placement firm JobFox.com.
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Highlighted Partners
GrowthForce is an outsourced accounting and financial services firm that helps small business grow. We provide accounting, bookkeeping, taxes and consulting advice to small businesses. We take charge of their accounting functions, freeing up management to focus on its core business.
The LOGIX DifferenceSM is the result of our commitment to be the easiest telecommunications company to do business with. It’s all the things that make our customers confident and happy to have chosen LOGIX as their telephone, Internet and data service provider.
The LOGIX DifferenceSM is what makes our customers go home positive that they have made the perfect decision in choosing LOGIX as their telecom and Internet provider. There’s no going back once you have experienced the LOGIX DifferenceSM.
BIZRADIO-The network features business-oriented programming from 6AM to 7PM seven days a week, mainly related to investing, under the tagline "The Sound of Your Money Growing". During the other hours, the stations broadcast non-business related programming (big band music in DFW and Vietnamese programming in Houston).
Automated Voice & Data Solutions (“AVDS”), a Texas-based company headquartered in Houston, designs, installs, and maintains advanced communications solutions for all types of industries, businesses, government, and education. Their IP Telephony solutions offer the most open design and flexibility found in converged technology today and are delivered on a Windows 2003 platform. Standard and advanced features include Voice Mail, Unified Messaging, Automatic Call Distributor, Auto-Attendant, Call Recording, VoIP, Interactive Voice Response, Predictive Dialer, and tools for Web-based applications. |
