FEATURE: IT OUTSOURCING
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Hannes Botes, Chief
Technology Officer,
MANXiT, unpacks
the issues and fears
surrounding the
outsourcing of IT
management as a service
(ITMaaS) and directs
businesses to re-imagine IT.
I
TMaaS may be defined as outsourcing
the management of a company’s IT,
a concept that can strike fear into the
heart of every CIO but, if examined
knowledgeably, can in fact be the saviour
of businesses stressed to deliver a globally
competitive service.
We live in a world where applications are the
face of business. The application economy
has changed our lives and the business
landscape forever. Traditional business
channels are being usurped by electronic
and mobile. The pace of business, coupled
with continuous change, creates unparalleled
challenges for IT.
By outsourcing the management of a
company’s IT, businesses are provided with
the ability to forget about having to manage
the day to day IT and instead focus on their
core business issues, namely running and
growing the organisation.
This makes perfect sense surely? But for
some execs and possibly specifically CIOs,
ITMaaS can be a frightening prospect that
includes loss of control over their IT domain,
possibly diminishing the extent of their role
and, even worse, the company’s data may
now reside in another country.
However, the reality is that the real
nightmare for CIOs is worrying about how
they will manage IT and, at the same time,
ensure they deliver world-class services that
support the business and keep pace with
their competitors, not to mention the ever-
increasing demands of their customers.
And all this must be achieved while, at the
same time, leveraging technology to take
advantage of the opportunities of the
application economy. This latter brings
major challenges for IT execs not least of
which is managing legacy systems while at
the same time focusing on shiny new apps
that have been developed to support the
goals of marketing and the business leaders.
Another important fact to highlight is that
many companies simply don’t possess the
best in class skills required to manage all
the elements of infrastructure and systems
right across the enterprise. This makes it
very tough for IT execs to ensure a perfect
customer experience that the business and
the app economy demands if it is to attract
new, while retaining existing, customers.
This is especially true when one considers that
the quality of the service is reliant on all the
old legacy systems which could be managed
by vendors that have the appropriate skills to
ensure the required high service levels.
Businesses need
to re-imagine IT
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