A Reaction

IT Outsourcing

When we speak of IT Outsourcing, what comes to your mind? Probably you would say it’s a business strategy of minimizing the operational cost. Others would suggest its subcontracting, the purchase by a company of labor or parts from a source outside the company. The usual reason for a company to outsource is either cost cutting or to employ expertise not available within the company. It has been also marked as the alternative avenue for system acquisition. Whatever it is one thing is for sure, outsourcing has become a trend not only in Business Industry but also in Information Technology.

Upon reading the article entitles IT Outsourcing Maximize Flexibility and Control by Mary Lacity, Laslie Willcock, and David Feeny, I have learned that outsourcing is not as easy as it may sound. It requires a lot of decision making not only in the part of high ranking officers in an organization, but also in technical personnel who do the actual work and who has greater knowledge in technical field. Aside from the decision making scenario, you also need to identify several factors and analyze possible results that might arise in the future.

According to the article, although it was not directly stated, outsourcing has positive and negative outcomes. You need to identify and analyze every single detail accordingly or you will end up loosing your organization which I definitely agree.

By clearly dissecting and understanding the article I can conclude and admit as true that outsourcing has several advantages. It can improve financial planning of the business because the provider will inform the client the actual and fixed cost of its IS function within a prescribed period of time. Aside from that, the company will be freed from burdening the maintenance fees and all other cost involved in operation such as personnel and fixed cost. Another advantage that can be experienced by my client if they will resort to outsourcing is increased access to highly qualified know-how because the get to “employ” competitive skilled workers which possibly is not available within the company. There will also be availability of ongoing consulting as part of standard support.

But like many other things in this world, it has also its disadvantages. The company might loose its control on some major part of IS functions and so they should be able to identify which part/s of the organizations should entrusted to outside provider. Although they can acquire highly trained professionals, they may also loose experienced employees for some reasons such as the organization will decide to get rid of the overhead cost. Last would be, organization might loose their competitive advantage over their competitors who may also hire the same provider which I personally agree.

The article has shown the true essence of outsourcing. It has discussed outsourcing in a balanced and in a straight-forward manner and as a reader of the article, I have no negative reactions to it.