INDUSTRYBENCHMARKING
Whitney wrote: “External consultants often don’t have the vested interest in a company that an internal staffer may have. I recall one project at my former IT job where we hired an external company to help us with a long-term Windows migration project. The people brought in to assist us were paid by the day. There were sometimes days where their contributions were lacking or they performed simple, almost meaningless tasks that were not at all critical to the project.”
The Five Golden Rules Number One
Make a transition plan and stick to it. You should expect IT outsourcing to disrupt your entire organisation in ways you may not expect. Your plan should include a change management module, a detailed and well-argued case to your staff outlining how you intend to make a smooth transition and a well- documented process to let your customers know that you have the outsourcing process well under control.
Number Two
Get your outsourcing plan in writing. Larry Harding, founder and president of High Street Partners, a global consultancy that advises companies on how to expand overseas, has seen many outsourcing horror stories, from corrupt general managers “with all sorts of conflicts of interest” (such as service providers getting kickbacks from landlords on the leased space) to projects torn apart by huge turnover rates.
“You end up with project teams that are hugely inconsistent. You might have a good team in place, but a month later, three-quarters of the team has ‘transitioned’ to another project,” he said.
You need to see the outsourcers’ plan in writing, particularly their crisis management plan. In the written report make sure you add capital asset budgets for the acquisition of software to improve operational efficiency and provide better coverage of security. Make sure that there are disincentives for contractors to avoid using or impairing the usage of software tools to improve things even if they reduce billable hours. Also make sure you allow for the embrace of better tools for labour saving. Do not allow the fox to guard the henhouse.
Number Three Transparency with respect to security practices. Outsourcing is not for the faint of heart because when things go wrong, they tend to do so rather dramatically. The companies who’ve lived through outsourcing horrors have two things in common: lack of preparedness going into a new relationship and lack of communication once the project gets
under way. You will have to place emphasis on choosing an outsourcer with a proven track record of delivering security services to a similar range of industry sectors over a long period of time.
They will need the ability to accurately correlate, analyse, and interpret large volumes of network security inputs in real time and be able to separate legitimate threats from a welter of false starts. An outsourcer should have multiple security operations centres that run 24x7x365. Having two or more data centres allows for redundancy and may ensure constant compliance with security standards. Your outsourcer should have security experts in place to monitor and analyse data from customers on a global basis. This level of intelligence will help your outsourcer issue real- time alerts and recommend fast reactions to unforeseen events.
Anticipate security breaches, you will have to plan for emerging threats and the need to purchase both software and hardware to respond to threats as well to improve compliance and security. Don’t allow the outsourcer to select their own tools as they will pick those that maximize their revenue, not your security. You cannot predict the future: provide slack to change your contractor’s mission as business and the security landscape change.
Number Four
Know their financial status, compliance standards, history, and audit points. What is your future security partner’s financial status? For publicly traded companies, Gartner estimates that annual run rates of more than $40 million per year in managed security services contracts indicate a sufficient base of revenue to support growth and enhancement of services. For the biggest outsourcers management experience should include defence, government, and a range of industrial sectors. This is an important consideration because it indicates an outsourcer’s ability to meet wide security management needs, including the monitoring of all industry standard security products. An outsourcer
Your outsourcer should have security experts in place to monitor and analyse data from customers on a global basis. This level of intelligence will help your outsourcer issue real-time alerts and recommend fast reactions to unforeseen events
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www.solar-pv-management.com Issue VI 2011
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