Kee Hinckley wrote:
As for your "it's easy" statements. They all deal with technical
issues. Not business and political issues. Most companies do *not*
like to outsource mission critical technology. You like phone
comparisons. Compare the market for in-house phone systems to
outsourced (to the phone company) systems. WHich is larger. Why?
That's not right. Most consultants I know recommend that businesses keep
in house only technology that is within their core competency. Other
technology should be evaluated for outsourcing. In particular, mission
critical technology that is not within a company's core competency
should be at the top of the list for outsourcing.
The reason is that mission ciritical technology cannot be allowed to
fail. If a company spends resources trying to operate a technology that
is outside its core competency, it detracts from the company's main
business focus, which is its core competency. Such technology should be
outsourced to someone whose core competency and demonstrated expertise
is in operating the technology in question. That's why there are ASPs.
This is certainly true for e-mail. It's just that most companies have
had higher priority things to outsource. That's because e-mail didn't
require much attention. With the rising tide of spam, however, many
companies are finding that running in-house mail now requires
specialized expertise and resources to run. Many companies are therefore
now considering outsourcing mail as well.
I have long recommended that companies, particularly small businesses,
outsource e-mail. The reason is that e-mail can only be a millstone
around the CIO's neck and never a plus. E-mail is generally not
perceived as mission critical by most senior executives (whether or not
it actually is.). The CIO gets no brownie points for running e-mail
well, but gets bombed by everybody when it goes down. That alone is a
really good reason for outsourcing it.
BTW, I have been both a CIO and a corporate ops director several times.
When I had to run internal phone service, I moved to convert, to the
extent feasible, to centrex as one of my first tasks on taking the job.
-LM
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