One of the
niceties about cloud computing and having digital natives in the workforce is
that your IT department can mature from being a cog in your organization to a
lever for success. Instead of just knowing all about the bits and bytes, the department
needs to be at home in vendor management. Part of this new role is delivering
and governing IT services with one or more outsourcing partners through
increasingly relevant frameworks like SIAM and COBIT.
The primary capability of the New IT Department™, however, is building great
relationships.
The secret
to a great marriage is seldom in the prenuptial agreement. Having a great
spouse who complements your weaknesses and enhances your strengths can take you
very far indeed, as evinced by the infamous Underwoods on Netflix[1]. Conducting a marriage on the basis
of legal paperwork is a poor relationship at best. A shared vision and
ambition, however, is an excellent basis.
Traditionally,
outsourcing IT services is about trading money for certain capabilities that
your business needs to do its thing. As IT is something that you notice
primarily when it breaks down, lags or fails to do what you want, IT
outsourcing contracts tend to be heavy on performance clauses. These are
supposed to warrant that most of the stuff will work most of the time, and get
fixed quickly if it does break. This approach to contracting is utilitarian,
defensive and ultimately anathema to what outsourcing can enable your company
to do.
The magic
of great outsourcing is finding a partner with whom you add directly to each
other’s brand value and culture. Finding the right partner is worth a lot of
time and effort. If your business relies on localized, region-specific service
to your customers, don’t outsource to a large centralized offshore IT service
provider. How could that ever be a good match? If your employees often work from
home, by all means get an IT partner that is willing to go out there and
deliver the same kind of service at home they can expect in the office. Do you
expect a lot of acquisitions to integrate? Find the service provided who
specializes in on-boarding and integrating diverse IT capabilities into a common
standard.
It’s not
doable anymore to have the IT department serve all your current and future
needs at a reasonable price, unless you are in that sector yourself. You need a
partner. You might as well find the one you can love. Best Value Procurement is an approach to contracting that helps
to form the basis for a more holistic relationship than one based purely of
price and service levels.
[1] To be clear, I don’t condone
or extend the parable to the very skewed moral compass of the Underwoods.
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