IT Outsourcing Business Plan
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This is where the IT outsourcing business plan gets started - at the top.
- Put the plan on paper by creating an outline of the components of it and then building on that outline.
- Focus on your overall strategy, also include information on who are your competitors.
- Write this plan for a specific audience. More details about this in the Communications section.
- If you have never created a business plan of this type before, search for outsourcing business plan on the Internet.
2. Work Involved - With Details
A well done IT outsourcing business plan includes as much detail as possible about the work involved. The more you can foresee upfront, the greater the certainty of having no surprises.
- Conduct a risk and readiness assessment of the company to decide exactly what kind of work should be outsourced.
- One of the reasons for this is that it helps potential suppliers determine what skills they have available in house and what skills they will need to hire outside.
- It also helps your company decide the nature of the outsourcing relationship and the type of supplier you will need.
- What type of relationship do you need?
- Will it be highly transactional where the outsourcer handles an amount of work for a specific period?
- Will the outsourcer be helping the company add new capability to its infrastructure?
- Will the outsourcer become a true partner and change the way the company does business?
- Assess your change management capabilities - are your people ready to manage these changes?
- One of the keys to success will be to manage organizational change between the two companies.
- Define the core and non core services within your organization. You may want to use external help to complete this task.
- Use your IT auditors to help build a Master Services Agreement that details the terms and conditions for doing business. Build a solid statement of work.
3. Communications - Internal And External
No IT outsourcing business plan would be complete without covering communications.
- Communicate your goals to all employees as well as to the potential supplier.
- Get visible support from other high level executives within your company.
- Make sure you state the business reasons for outsourcing. Clearly explain the business drivers for doing this.
- Ensure you have sponsorship from other senior people within the company to help make this project a success. Don't proceed without their support.
- Probably you will be introducing new people into the company, you must establish very clear lines of communications.
- Depending on the level of outsourcing, it could involve managing a global relationship. It is important you have these skills IT leadership, architecture, vendor management and business alignment.
- If you are looking to go offshore, it is very important to take into consideration the cultural, language and time differences.
- Make sure you have professional IT expertise to manage the IT aspects of this project.
- Select project managers who have been very successful in running projects in the past.
- They need to establish critical success factors and monitor/report thru the governance structure.
- Managers from both sides need to focus on communications and how to work effectively within your company's environment.
- Make sure you have the right cross-functional team of people to assess the service options.
4. The Outsourcer - Essential Points
Your IT outsourcing business plan implies the use of an outsourcer. Enough said!
- When looking at outside service providers, make sure you check the viability of the company and their own availability of disaster recovery services.
- Establish very clear criteria for supplier selection and make sure these criteria continue beyond the selection process to become the basis for monitoring the performance of the supplier.
- Understand the supplier's organizational structure and align that with your own internal organizational structure. Establish a single global point of contact for each side of the relationship. Build a formal governance structure.
- When looking to start the actual services, build a phased approach. Make sure key people have the objectives clearly stated.
- Make sure whatever your startup project is, that it has enough "critical mass" and sustainability to justify the investment you are about to make.
Excellent Resources
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