IT outsourcing has grown into a prosperous practice, and many managing directors are looking forward to harvest the diverse advantages of outsourcing. But it isn’t that all commercial enterprises should subcontract just for the sake of it; you have to measure what jobs you can do better internally.
Then comes the stage to find a workable subcontracting model. Recognize your necessities and see what your aims are. Do you only wish to have a one-time subcontracting deal? Queries like these should be addressed before you decide to go for personnel subcontracting, function subcontracting, or project-based outsourcing. That’s what we will be looking at in this article.
Firstly, we will discuss personnel outsourcing. This is basically the need when you begin to get more work than your present manpower can handle easily. But you may also be wondering what happens if the need for excess workers goes down later. Also, hiring permanent in-house staff means increase in fixed costs like extra computers, furniture, etc. for all the new entrants. And most importantly, it isn’t easy to layoff numerous employees when you don’t need them any more.
Contract employees are normally too expensive to afford, particularly in these bad economic times. Here comes personnel outsourcing, which allows you to employ fulltime overseas employees who will work only for you 40 hrs every week. The aim here is to increase the workforce for doing additional work without hiring in-house employees.
Secondly, sometimes you get clients who need a variety of services and your current manpower might not have the essential skills to execute all those mandatory services perfectly. This model of subcontracting works fine if the task you are subcontracting doesn’t necessitate bilateral work between several departments. For example, data entry work can be executed without much interdepartmental communication if you furnish all the information and a good description of the work involved.
Therefore, it is fine to outsource this unique function to an overseas IT service provider. And this function-based subcontracting framework also works well when you want to shut down an internal department like the helpdesk and outsource that entire function to cut expenses.
In the end, we have project-based subcontracting, where we outsource only specific IT projects. Projects usually have pre-specified aims and end points, and the deliverables in projects can be defined in detail. This is a one-time deal and you can choose to disburse payments only if the project finishes as per your necessities.
Archive for the Category ◊ information technology ◊
If there is any business that has grown beyond all expectations, that has to be information technology. Information technology has given us new dimensions of getting results and that too in real time. There is hardly any industry where IT is not in consideration.
Therefore to bag a contract job in the same field is something that will give you high returns as well as is satisfying. The best part is that there is no manual labour included – that means you do not have to oil in the heat and cold, unlike other engineering jobs.
Why is the Information Technology Job a Lucrative Consideration?
1. Money: When you bag a contract in the same field, you must know that you’ve bagged a minefield of gold. The reason being, if you know your work – you will be suitably rewarded and the word on your skills and abilities will reach beyond the firm or the person you’re serving currently.
You may get paid on the number of hours worked or weekly – as you like it.
2. Work Satisfaction: Rest assured no Information Technology work is ever boring. This is mostly because you need to develop real world applications and suggest remedies that will help real people out there. The job is as varied as it is satisfying.
3. Experience: The experience gained while serving a client is extremely valuable and you can count that as a reward card to your self-employment. If you’re good, you can start even your own IT services in a few months!
One thing that should be mentioned here is that an IT contract job is not the same as an IT consultant job. By contract job, it is meant that if you have your own team of IT experts and get to design particular software, you rope in other IT experts and work under their guidance and deliver the results – whereas, in a consultancy job, you have your own manpower and other resources. You get a particular application to test – you do it and submit the results to the firm which has consulted you. There ends your job.
Basic Skill set required for getting contracts in Information Technology
?Computer Knowhow – Advanced Level with expertise on troubleshooting.
?Language set – Important programming languages like C, Java, C# and C++. Other knowledge is added advantage.
?Zeal to learn and grow.
?Knowledge on Workstations and personal computing system and system developing platforms like Java SDK and other developing softwares.
Personal growth is very limited in IT consultancy job, but the same cannot be said about the Information technology contract employment. If you’re thinking about what to do this summer – do something useful and rewarding with your skill set. Bag an information technology contract job.
Mergers and acquisitions continue to be prominent in today’s public corporate and private equity space. A significant challenge to most organizations that are in the market to acquire or divest a business unit is how to address the Information Technology requirements. Unlike an acquisition whereby the entire company is being acquired, an acquisition of an individual business unit(s) poses unique challenges particularly in the case where it resides in a well-integrated, efficient technical environment. Rarely can a business unit be turned over to the purchasing organization on Legal Day 1, but instead a Transition Services Agreement (TSA) must be developed between the two organizations which stipulates the seller to continue providing the computing environment for a period of time while the buyer executes the plan for integration into their own environment.
With increasing focus on individual privacy, and threats from malicious sources to gain access to individual’s information or corporate proprietary information, the importance of planning technology isolation during the TSA period has increased exponentially. This isolation is equally important to the organization that is selling the business unit as to the organization that is acquiring the unit to protect the interests of both parties and is required in regulated industries.
The most important, yet often challenging, step to a successful divestiture and impending acquisition of a business unit is to have a clear understanding of what encompasses the transaction. It is critical to have the application disposition defined, detailed inventory of the technology assets included sale, and the physical locations of the employees affected by the sale to develop an isolation strategy. Once the environment that is proposed to be sold has been defined, a crucial next step is to assess the applications and computing environment to garner an understanding of their dependencies on the selling organization, and the larger organization’s dependencies on them.
Technology organizations must work closely with real estate management divisions to develop a human resource strategy to isolate both physically and logically those employees that will be sold to the acquirer. Often this strategy involves the consolidation of employees and applications to designated sites, and the implementation of dedicated network and security infrastructure. Such isolation will assure that post-Legal Day 1, the individuals that became employees of the purchasing organization no longer have access to seller’s network and proprietary information. This task becomes more complex when seconded individuals exist which require access to both companies.
Investment by the seller is required to support the isolation of the business unit prior to its being sold. The IT component which potentially includes the purchase of new equipment and resource hours may be significant and should be considered prior to agreement on the deal. The amount of consolidation and number of employee affected may reduce costs, however, the seller needs to expect a minimal amount of activity to perform the isolation regardless of the size of the business unit, particularly if the industry is highly regulated. Aggressive timelines to complete the transaction may also significantly increase costs and need to be considered. A due diligence assessment prior to finalizing the deal by an experienced team can uncover additional costs and provide the selling organization an accurate estimation of the cost involved to achieve the isolation thus providing the appropriate environment to assure their business is protected from malicious or unintentional damage from a business unit no longer part of their company.
For organizations that that don’t have the internal expertise to work through technology disentanglement, a professional M&A due diligence technology assessment consultancy such as Beacon Integration LLC (beaconintergration.com) can be engaged to orchestrate technology aspects of the transaction.