When blogging it doesn’t rain but it pours – I almost made it to the end of March without a blog entry (those ‘daily posts’ get hard to do when you’re swamped with other work – one can only have respect for ‘a-list’ bloggers that do manage to post something every day.
I was commissioned by CEO Online recently to write an article on IT Outsourcing from the perspective of the CEO, and the pros and cons of this approach, for publication in their Expert Talk section.
There is becoming quite a library of material there – I have published there before – and it seems good value for the $11 a month subscription.
As it was commissioned for CEO Online for their April newsletter, I won’t publish the article here but would instead direct you to CEO Online to have a look. I may be able to publish the whole article at a later date.
I will however reproduce the introductory paragraph here:
“Figuratively at least, CEOS are lying awake at night asking, “Is my IT infrastructure delivering what it needs to? In essence, are we doing IT right?†The February 2006 CEO Online Survey identified an age-old and important issue that causes CEOs considerable angst: ‘What is the best way to manage IT infrastructure?’
Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer apart from, “Well, it depends.†The goal of this article is to outline three alternative approaches to the delivery of Information Technology (IT) services and then to consider the pros and cons of each approach.
At the end of this article, you – as a CEO – will be better informed as to the likely benefits, traps and pitfalls of IT outsourcing.”
From: IT Outsourcing – Selecting The ‘Best’ Infrastructure Model, April Newsletter CEO Online.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s a fairly meaty article (for once, a reasonable word limit was available due to web-publication) focussed on risk management, the fact that small to medium-sized businesses can often find internal IT a distraction and a problem management for an area that may not deliver competitive advantage (clearly that’s not the case for all companies), and an organisationally mature approach to outsourcing that unfortunately will not deliver immediate, large benefits but will deliver long-term benefits at a lower level of risk.
Any feedback on the article is of course always appreciated.