Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 16 | Page 52

FEATURE: IT OUTSOURCING ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 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 52 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com