What IT Functions to Outsource

CIOs often ponder upon this very important aspect of their outsourcing strategy. What IT functions should I outsource?

A broad classification of an IT department will be under two heads - Infrastructure and Applications. We can further classify these two as below:

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Infrastructure
Primary Systems: These include your Data Centers, Networks, Servers, System Software, Databases, Storage Systems, Enterprise Service Bus and Desktops. Secondary Systems: These will include Email and Softwares running on desktops.
Applications
Enterprise Applications: These will include those core applications that form the basic foundation of running the business such as ERP systems and Business Applications such as a Banking System in a Bank or a Crew Management System in an Airline. Support or Periphery Applications: These will include any Business Intelligence and Datawarehousing tools, Document Management Systems, e-Learning Systems and Intranet Portals.Can you outsource all of these? The answer is yes. 

You can buy a BI product from a BI vendor, get a Services vendor to build an executive dashboard for you and further outsource the maintenance of that platform.

You can locate your Data Centers with a third party provider and get an Infrastructure Services company to manage the same for you.

The possibilities are endless. That brings us to an all important question considering that the outsourcing funda is to manage the 'core' and outsource the "context". What is your "core" and what is your "context" - from an IT user organization's perspective?

Consider this. If you the CIO outsources all of the functions mentioned earlier in the article, what will your IT group be doing from 9 to 5? Manage vendors? Not a good idea, considering the fact that there will be a procurement group out there breathing down your neck all the time.

I think in the modern day organization, where most of the IT functions are outsourced, the "core" will be defined as 'management of service delivery to business users'. That will be the single most important function the new-age IT groups will be performing and getting paid for!

It is not as simple as it sounds. Management, Service Delivery, Business, Users - all these words and the meaning it holds are tremendously important and will define in totality what an IT user organization's core is. Theoretically, you should be able to outsource the rest!

What IT Functions to Outsource

Raj Kurup is an Information Technology professional with 11 years of industry experience. He lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.

Raj has a 4 year Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree and a Masters in Management with a double major in (information) systems and marketing.

You can read more about his thoughts on technology outsourcing at his blog http://www.technologyoutsourcingblog.com.

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5 Critical Functions of Cradle to Grave Telecom/Wireless Expense Management

Why settle for less cost/time savings, when you and your telecom team can exceed corporate expectations with life-cycle management of your company's wireless environment? Optimizing your enterprise's entire telecom/mobile device inventory is not just a dream it must be a requirement. Did you know most organizations' telecommunications budget is often one of the top three corporate budget items? Critical to your company's competitive edge and fiscal bottom-line success may very well be Telecom/Wireless Expense Management (TEM/WEM). The wireless discipline is also known as Mobility Device Management (MDM).

Unfortunately, many companies assume they are either managing their wireless assets acceptably or getting enough out of their internal efforts to render unnecessary any additional initiatives. This mindset is most often not only counterproductive to your company's fiscal best end result but also seriously flawed in remaining competitive in the current difficult business environment. Your rival corporate entities likely have understood mandatory life-cycle Telecom/Wireless Expense Management (TEM/WEM) is vital to their expense reduction strategies. If not, they will soon. Your team would be wise to prioritize this TEM/WEM approach as well.

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If your team's telecom/wireless efforts are anything other than cradle to grave management, your company's telecom/wireless spend and employee time commitments are likely greater than is necessary for your business usage and required services. Check out these 5 Critical Functions of cradle to grave TEM/WEM solutions.

5 Critical Functions of life cycle TEM/WEM Services

1. Invoice/Financial Management

From invoice receipt to payment an automated solution is key to an affective life-cycle management of your telecom environment services. Once the electronic/paper billing is received the data must be fed into an automated software solution for the establishment of the TEM/WEM process. Core to this course of action is a centralized data base from which your team can manage all aspects of financial, accounting, and bill payment workflow. Such solutions must provide the right processing tools; exception reporting capability, carrier contract & corporate rules validation, as well as cost/split allocations and a robust reporting tool with a telephony aptitude to utilize it. This application will form the foundation to a true Cradle to Grave TEM/WEM approach.

2. Order Management

Centralizing and automating your device procurement process is essential to corporate control and the establishment of an accurate asset management process. This practice permits only corporate selected devices from which the employee/end-user can choose and only corporate hierarchy/cost center/device type approved services/devices into the inventory. The following related procurement services include:

Procurement/eProcurement- All telecom services should be ordered centrally and accounted for from inception from within the app. Wireless - All vendor devices are selected from a corporate approved online catalog covering all accepted corporate carrier, device and accessories types.

The look and feel of the online wireless catalog should be client/company specific to give the end-user a comfort level expediting and enhancing their selection experience.

Additional Best in Class wireless ordering portal features are:

selections from all corporate approved carrier/device/accessory types available and up to date. corporate policy should be required and accepted by end-user. corporate approval process automatically requested and certified before order placement. all approved device and accessories are shipped to the selected address. Procured devices/accessories are received by the correct end-user within all carriers promised SLA's. the entire process is duly noted. optimally all above transactions should be hierarchy/cost center driven; i.e. Catalog device/accessory types are dependent on where the subscriber/end-user sits in the hierarchy.

Provisioning(wireless) - Automated and/or live wireless support ensures:

correct device voice and data provisioning/set up timely end-user device training accurately entering transaction, device/accessory, end-user data, and cost center/hierarchy info into the wireless asset inventory.

All such disciplines save the end-user/corporate telecom team (WEM solution provider) both time and the company capital due to proven automated process efficiencies.

3. Inventory/Asset Management - Combined with the aforementioned eProcurement solution, wireless support/Help Desk is no less vital to maintaining an uncorrupted asset inventory. Maintaining the ongoing reliability of the data on who has what device, and what cost center/project(s) should account for it completes the loop for wireless inventory management.

Help Desk (wireless) - On-line or live wireless support provides the ongoing accuracy company's must require. Inventory Management requires controlling the distribution of your wireless device population while allowing your end users/telecom team to get back to work on their core responsibilities. Help Desk aids in resolving these time-consuming issues/distractions, saving your enterprise substantial time and money.

From centralized/automated device selection/approval, procurement order entry/processing, provisioning, all Moves, Adds, Changes (MAC's), reporting, and data analysis, Help Desk/Wireless Support seamlessly maintains the integrity of the device/end-user/cost center data and helps to ensure its correctness.

If data originally recorded needs to be changed or has been changed, your wireless support team provides that essential link to maintaining or accounting for device/accessory/cost center info so vital to wireless inventory management.

4. Vendor/Contract Management - The centralized data base relating to contract management is key to keeping current with carrier pricing, plans, terms and pricing. Quick visibility into such data will help your telecom team be able to access your current status and compare to the latest competitive offerings. Such info across all vendors should include:

your vendors info vendor contracts carrier contract info including terms/plans/pooling contract validation data and processes carrier (specific/comprehensive) usage carrier (specific/comprehensive) spend reporting capabilities available for review (by right, role & responsibility) to all required company staff Company Wireless Device/Accessory Policy and validation processes

5. Expense Management/Optimization - Finally all of the previous disciplines are designed to optimize your telecom/wireless expenses and contribute to a radically reduced spend. Comprehensive Usage/Spend Reporting, Exception generating capability, and analytical expertise will help you achieve the highest level of expense management success resulting in optimum savings generation. Your Expense Management strategies should include:

Cost Avoidance/ Optimization - ensures enterprise should only be paying for necessary services, devices, accessories, features options required for the optimum operation of corporate telecommunications goals. Audit Services - invoice validation, contract compliance, trending analysis Report Management - contract/business rule compliance/corp. policies, pooling, dispute management, trending, zero use features/devices, feature option adds needed, features not needed, and additional ad hoc reporting capability is required.

Businesses utilizing these 5 Critical Functions of Cradle to Grave Telecom/Wireless Expense Management services will dramatically increase time/cost efficiency while radically reducing corporate telecom/wireless spend spectacularly.

5 Critical Functions of Cradle to Grave Telecom/Wireless Expense Management

About The Author

Gary is the Business Development Manager for Integrity Communications. With a wealth of telecom marketing experience, Gary provides useful insights for those seeking help with various telecom cost reduction strategies as they work to improve their telecom teams efficiencies concerning their business' telecom environment.

The Integrity Communications web site: http://www.integritycsi.com/ will provide quick links to a variety of telecom management discipline offerings. For additional important information feel free to check out Gary's Blog at: http://integritycsi.wordpress.com/

Ask about Integrity's ALL REWARD/NO RISK telecom analysis at your earliest convenience!

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Web Portal And Web Portals Functions

What are the Major Functions of Portals?

The ideal portal is based on following functionality areas:

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- search and navigation

- personalization

- notification

- task management and workflow

- collaboration and groupware

Although most of the functionality is not new, what is new is the idea that the business value of the whole is considerably more than the sum of its parts. Thus, a successful portal does not only consist of either a good collaboration support or a good integration of the information sources. Rather it consists of - just like a successful cooking recipe - a well-integrated mixture of the basic portal functionalities.

Search and Navigation

This functionality forms the basis for most of the successful public web portals meaning that a successful portal should support its users in an efficient search for contents.

A portal should:

- automatically present its users with the information appropriate to the user's role

- suggest additional information to the user, and/or allow the user to voluntarily personalize the information presented by the portal

- allow the user to search for information that was not previously known to be relevant to the user's role, but which may be available through the portal

Provide Personalization

Personalization is vital to the delivery of appropriate information to portal users: each user gets only the information which is specifically tailored to his/her needs. Personalization should be based on user roles, as well as user preferences.

There are several types of personalization:

- Personalization of navigation

e.g. shortcuts to specific information, mostly known as bookmarks or favorites

- Personalization of data/content

e.g. which stocks do I want to see in my stock ticker

- Personalization of layout

e.g. what information appears where on the screen, in which format, color or size

An important high-level distinction exists between:

- Design personalization

the initial appearance of the portal, which may be 'pre-personalized' according to the user's role

- Voluntary personalization

where the user is offered a menu of personalization options to choose from

- Involuntary personalization

where the system itself unilaterally makes decisions for the user according to 'guesses' about user preferences.

On a Web site, personalization is the process of tailoring pages to individual users' characteristics or preferences. Commonly used to enhance customer service or e-commerce sales, personalization is sometimes referred to as one-to-one marketing; because the enterprise's Web page is tailored to specifically target each individual consumer. Personalization is a means of meeting the customer's needs more effectively and efficiently, making interactions faster and easier and, consequently, increasing customer satisfaction and the likelihood of repeat visits.

Provide Notification

Notification (push technology) is referred to as a system in which a user receives information automatically from a network server. Push technologies are designed to send information and software directly to a user's desktop without the user actively requesting it. Thus, the user has the opportunity to subscribe to active information sources (such as news feeds and periodically updated reports) and ask to be alerted when documents are updated.

Provide Task Management and Workflow

Portals providing task management services can help users take part in and/or manage formally defined business processes.

The workflow functionality allows the automation of business processes. Thus, as part of a workflow-automated business process, a portal should be able to prompt its users when they have tasks to perform.

E.g. Digite Application

Provide Collaboration and Groupware

Knowledge management and groupware ensure that the required information is stored in the right place and in the right mode. By this means the right persons are brought together with the right information. Groupware software assists in less formal collaboration than workflow tools. As with workflow automation, groupware increases the value delivered by many types of specialized portals; for example, it:

- increases the attractiveness of business-to-consumer e-commerce portals

- enables informal communication between suppliers and customers in business-to-business e-commerce portals

Supply chain portals are also dependent on collaboration support in order to help suppliers and their customers manage their relationships. Moreover, collaboration support is a key requirement for knowledge portals.

Web Portal And Web Portals Functions

Driven by a single minded focus on customer delight TJ delivers peace of mind and the surety of enhanced returns. It is one of the emerging independent solution providers in Louisville, Kentucky Web site Development, Software development company, web portal design. For details or business inquiries visit www.turtlejet.net.

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