Outsourcing

["Gallagher, Debbie" <dgallagher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

     Late response due to vacation (was great!).
     
     I see you didn't really get any replies from those who'd had 
     unsatisfactory experiences... so here's mine.
     
     One of my clients outsourced the data centre operations (not 
     programming) to a company that specializes in doing this (sorry, can't 
     be public about the company name). 
     
     Outsource firm did a pretty decent job of moving the boxes to the new 
     building, and the first little while (a few months) things went 
     reasonably well. However, the service did go downhill and got quite 
     bad. The strategy of the outsource firm appeared to be - bring in the 
     big experts to impress the client and make the sale, then move the 
     experts onto the the next potential/new client and leave the dogs to 
     run the show. Perhaps this was just the way it looked and wasn't 
     intended, but that's pretty much the sequence of events.
     
     Some of the problems included:
     
     - poorly trained operators (some of whom would guess the solution to 
     problems instead of calling programmers for instructions - this led to 
     several unhilarious and difficult to diagnose errors)
     - slow or no response to phone calls or faxed requests
     - technical support with no (not little - none) experience on the 
     hardware or operating system
     - back ups not done according to agreed schedule - also backups not 
     verified by procedure as simple as reading the job log
     - back up tapes lost - this was a particularly frequent and 
     troublesome occurence
     
     I'm not suggesting that outsourcing is necessarily a bad thing, but 
     have a few suggestions:
     
     - Have a service level agreement that outlines the penalties for bad 
     service - be specific about what the service requirements are and the 
     escalation procedure. Include a requirement for reqular meetings with 
     the provider to review your service records.
     
     - Take responsibility for monitoring the agreement and ensure that the 
     service provider is actually doing what you pay them to do.
     
     HTH,
     Debbie Gallagher
     
     - -----Original Message-----
     From: Roger Boucher [mailto:RBoucher@stanpac.com]
     Sent: Thursday, 5 August 1999 2:06
     To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
     Subject: Outsourcing (was IS Assets)
     
     
      . . . . Does anyone out there have any experiences with outsourcing
     services for IS?  If so, are those experiences generally good or bad?  
     . . . 
     
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