Outsourcing Business ProcessesOutsourcing Business ProcessesOutsourcing Business ProcessesSummaryThis paper captures the most prominent services and issues associated with todays outsourcing environment. Outsourcing is the modern business term for having other companies accomplish basic business processes rather than doing them inhouse. While outsourcing has always been an important business option, modern technical capabilities are fast making outsourcing a critical requirement in competitive, cost conscious industries. However, our recent experience with terrorist challenges indicates that a second look is needed to ensure that outsourcing risks are still acceptable.
This paper (1) benchmarks classical (but modern) outsourcing methods to provide a starting point, (2) notes what information system services are being outsourced, (3) provides examples of how those services were being promoted and leveraged, with some comments on terrorist related risks, and (4) indicates how the experts suggest that outsourcing, if it is reliable and secure, should be addressed in contracts (incentives). An awareness of these basic aspects of outsourcing is important to the business analyst or consultant.
Benchmarking Modern OutsourcingCharles L. Gay and James Essinger (2000) provide not only a generic (non-high-tech) framework within which to view modern, high-tech outsourcing, they also provide this framework from the British perspective, often using United States companies as examples. They list numerous benefits and hazards of outsourcing, only indirectly considering terrorist acts, and they explore the different business relationships that apply in the world of outsourcing. Based on their perspectives, we can conclude that outsourcing is a well developed but also complex topic, one that is often over simplified and, thus, is often improperly implemented.
Nevertheless, with the British framework in mind, one should view the numerous and quickly evolving high-tech extrapolations of outsourcing as less intimidating and, also, less risky from a business perspective, at least as view from their pre-September thinking. With a few rather obvious guidelines in place, a business consultant (certainly an information technology business consultant) should be able to recommend to a client what aspects of the clients business can and should be outsourced. The consultant can also be very helpful in selecting an appropriate source of those services as well as make suggestions as to how to approach outsourcing contractually. This requires some preparation and awareness, but it only involves alerting the client to possibilities as part of an analysis of business functions, some of which may now be considered from a new security perspective.
The Business of Internet Jobs
For a while, Microsoft’s business was known as the Microsoft Internet Jobs. It had a large number of “high-tech” jobs. They had a strong presence at the “computer” industries and, as such, their products were a lot cheaper than those of Apple. Many of the business benefits of this new market were in fact similar to those of the 1990’s. By the time of the 1990’s, Internet Jobs was all about Internet Access, Speed and Open Access. This was good news; there had been no shortage of opportunities. With Windows 8, the first thing you need in order to get started with the Web was to have a Windows desktop and get on Windows 10 for your work.
The success of Microsoft for most of the last decade was attributed to its efforts to create a system, called “Microsoft Outlook,” that would integrate all of Microsoft’s new, “Open Web” products into computers, enabling more jobs to be created during new, more expensive years. In early 1999, just a few months after Microsoft was founded, Microsoft opened the first Internet Jobs office. It included the Office and an e-mail system.
In April 1999, President Bill Clinton began the National Telecommunications Interview Program. This program was intended to promote the Internet Jobs in Washington. The program was based on Microsoft’s “Open Web” system, with thousands of Microsoft jobs on the market. These Jobs were to be staffed by professionals of a high caliber with a clear view into potential technology improvements to the U.S.
I have written about this program before, in an article about it in Wired. Some early Internet Jobs were in fact made available to those interested in doing an Internet Business. The Program was also intended to develop and support new services that would allow for faster Internet access by helping those who really need Internet access to get it without increasing the cost.
From the start, President Clinton promised to try something about to be created. During the administration, the Internet Jobs program created by the Program was widely criticized. At first it caused no shortage of discussion and concern. Some Internet Jobs were just “made available” to the public because of their “clear view” into any possible technology and what could be done to improve it. In the past few years, some of these Jobs have been removed from the Internet Jobs program because they were not “made available” with clear views of the issues, such as the need for new web technologies, or the ability of Internet Jobs to solve some of the major problems in the Web, such as the Web of Sites.
In February 1999, before he took office President Clinton announced that all new Internet Jobs offices and Web Jobs support services would remain open. Even though many of America’s computer industries did not have all the information and resources necessary to get started in this industry, it quickly became clear that the Microsoft Office software was not available. At that time, most of the people who wanted to access Microsoft Office software would pay to have a Microsoft Office installed on their computers in an area of their choice — in other words wherever Microsoft Office software and services were available.
As the new president and his administration pursued a long project to create online jobs, the problems began to develop in their respective fields of technology, namely the Internet of Things and Digital Ocean Technologies, and it became clear that Microsoft’s new products could make up for these problems.
The Problem of the “Software and Services that Matter”
When the
Outsourcing TodayExploring the Internet for outsourcing information consistently leads to the obvious. For example, outsourcing has become a major element of the high-tech startup environment over the past couple of years. There have been (and are) many new high-tech companies trying to convince low-tech companies of the advantages of e-business. Indeed, many high-tech outsourcing marketers touted services to their high-tech peers, proclaiming the advantages of focusing on their high-tech core-business while outsourcing everything else. Of course, much of this was easier to sell prior to September, before security and reliability became a central concern throughout the industry.
High-tech to high-tech marketing results from the emergence of high-tech access to cheap labor (e.g., programming, data entry, and accounting) from other countries, more immediate access to state-of-the art software (discussed below), and access to expert problem solvers for future non-core business issues that make outsourcing attractive from a risk-sharing perspective. Unfortunately, some of these overseas labor cost savings advantages are decreasingly attractive due to other problems, including the emergent security issues but also including recent realizations of new problems.
The new set of problems include the downstream operating and maintenance regimes, regimes that require an increased communication level, perhaps to make up for past poor communications. For, example, based on personal experience at IBM with support from India, there is increased frustration due to poor issue response, poor access to programming details, and the difficulty of communicating operational problems that need early correction.
Value vs. RiskNevertheless, technology managers and outsourcing consultants still need to consider several other outsourcing risk factors, such as the potential for legal complexities, for reduced flexibility, and for crises such as unforgiving business database disasters. Recent terrorist activities argue