NWR Outsourced IT?

We're currently investigating options for transitioning our company IT from a few laptops and a server managed in-house to something which is scaleable to a bigger business. Key for us will be ensuring machines are patched on time without relying on our staff, that user access is tightly controlled and that data is kept in-country.

There are lots of firms out there who offer this but I always prefer recommendations - if anyone has any pointers I'd be most grateful!

Thanks.
 
Unfortunately with outsourced IT you are just another client managed by a prescribed SLA.

Anything over and above the contract will come at a cost with the people you interact with delivering prescriptively to a contract.

The term "they have no skin in it" is often banded about by those businesses who have moved to this IT model.

Tread very carefully.
 
.... and for many SMEs you can easily spend more time and money managing the contract(s), delivery etc. than you save.

You will just be a profit bearing commodity.

Tread very carefully is an understatement.
 
From the tone of my initial response its prob obvious to see that I work within an in house IT Dept.

Within a matter of weeks we virtualised a vast proportion of our office based workforce amounting to many thousands of staff. If I had gone to an IT Service Provider we would still be talking contractuals.......
 
Disclaimer - I work for a cloud computing firm and am a true believer...

that said - depending on your industry - securing your technical assets may be a core competence that you properly shouldn’t outsource.

there’s lots of capabilities that you can buy in - there are lots of vendors doing excellent work around different aspects of security, laptop management etc - but there’s a difference between having a trusted employee, with skin in the game, procuring and managing those services - and an outside company managing to an SLA.

If I were starting the kind of operation where data needed to be kept in country - I’d virtualise everything - either with geo fenced offerings from the big providers or look at some small niche specialists, I’d invest in proper endpoint security and I’d hire an IT person pretty early.

Purely anecdotally - Macs seem to be much more secure - I can’t speak to whether this is security by obscurity or more fundamental design stuff.
 
Thanks everyone - some useful food for thought. Leon - I have been looking at Azure cloud as an option - my concern is making sure we don't end up complicating things to a level which is beyond our understanding. You are undoubtedly right about hiring someone...!
 
I guess I should add - there are definitely also circs where outsourcing your desktop and / or server support makes sense. It just really depends on where that technology falls in terms of commodity vs core competency. If you’re a consultancy or a gardening firm - technology isn’t going to differentiate you. If you’re a technology company or dealing in sectors where security is key - it is likely to. Imnvho.
 
Thanks everyone - some useful food for thought. Leon - I have been looking at Azure cloud as an option - my concern is making sure we don't end up complicating things to a level which is beyond our understanding. You are undoubtedly right about hiring someone...!

Azure is superb stuff - Microsoft have been doing excellent work of late. The “beyond our understanding” point is likely the key one.

my - very biased - perspective is that more companies than realise is need to invest in that understanding. If your strategic differentiation is technology- and / or technology represents a key strategic risk to you - then it is probably necessary to invest in the skills - and also candidly have the leadership have at least a high level understanding.

In my mind there is a clear parallel with Sales - I’ve never seen a company that outsourced selling being successful - there are a lot of companies now for whom outsourcing their IT decisions would be like outsourcing their sales.

that’s not to say (assuming I am even half way right) that you need to go out and hire a top flight IT bod, nor that you shouldn’t outsource anything - more that IT is a strategic competence and should be seen as such. In the same way you might outsource some elements of manufacturing and assembly but not others - and the choices would depend on how innovative your product is / who might want to steal it / how commonplace the processes themselves are.

this is of course very self serving as it makes my teenage nerdiness seem like brilliant foresight rather than social awkwardness.
 
We're currently investigating options for transitioning our company IT from a few laptops and a server managed in-house to something which is scaleable to a bigger business. Key for us will be ensuring machines are patched on time without relying on our staff, that user access is tightly controlled and that data is kept in-country.

There are lots of firms out there who offer this but I always prefer recommendations - if anyone has any pointers I'd be most grateful!

Thanks.

Data residency is really hard to get right, without the additional complications of another IT vendor. Depending on your requirements and budget, there are tools that allow you to monitor software deployment and versions across the organization, which could potentially be used to monitor or evidence effectiveness. My gut feeling says there's a reason so many corporates manage IT in house and I'd certainly avoid the usual cabal of CSC/ATOS/Serco. If you've got the expertise in house, I'd keep them and use the cloud services you've been looking at lighten the load.
 
Unfortunately with outsourced IT you are just another client managed by a prescribed SLA.

Anything over and above the contract will come at a cost with the people you interact with delivering prescriptively to a contract.

The term "they have no skin in it" is often banded about by those businesses who have moved to this IT model.

Tread very carefully.
I disagree though to many companies your views may be valid (we’ve dealt with some awful support companies). There are some good companies out there who actually do care and actually do give a more personal service. These are normally smaller specialised companies where the directors “have skin in the game” as their reputation and salary rely upon the good experience and effectiveness of their support staff and company.
I help run a support company :)

I would also say that there are a few very large companies who utilise us as we have that specialist skill and knowledge with an ability to react and sort issues way faster than any internal support system for larger corporates.

Nigel we may not be the right company for what you require but we do similar things on the Mac side with management. Cloud services can work well for the right type of company but so many go wrong and spend a fortune (relatively) or choose the wrong product due to huge data sizes (in production and media). A lot depends on your current setup and what you really want from it.
Happy to have a quick chat though it may be this isn’t my area of expertise depending on your infrastructure and requirements.
 
I disagree though to many companies your views may be valid (we’ve dealt with some awful support companies). There are some good companies out there who actually do care and actually do give a more personal service. These are normally smaller specialised companies where the directors “have skin in the game” as their reputation and salary rely upon the good experience and effectiveness of their support staff and company.
I help run a support company :)

I would also say that there are a few very large companies who utilise us as we have that specialist skill and knowledge with an ability to react and sort issues way faster than any internal support system for larger corporates.

Nigel we may not be the right company for what you require but we do similar things on the Mac side with management. Cloud services can work well for the right type of company but so many go wrong and spend a fortune (relatively) or choose the wrong product due to huge data sizes (in production and media). A lot depends on your current setup and what you really want from it.
Happy to have a quick chat though it may be this isn’t my area of expertise depending on your infrastructure and requirements.
Mike - thank you - will PM you.
 
Disclaimer - I work for a cloud computing firm and am a true believer...

that said - depending on your industry - securing your technical assets may be a core competence that you properly shouldn’t outsource.

there’s lots of capabilities that you can buy in - there are lots of vendors doing excellent work around different aspects of security, laptop management etc - but there’s a difference between having a trusted employee, with skin in the game, procuring and managing those services - and an outside company managing to an SLA.

If I were starting the kind of operation where data needed to be kept in country - I’d virtualise everything - either with geo fenced offerings from the big providers or look at some small niche specialists, I’d invest in proper endpoint security and I’d hire an IT person pretty early.

Purely anecdotally - Macs seem to be much more secure - I can’t speak to whether this is security by obscurity or more fundamental design stuff.
You may be the man to speak to next :)
Yes macs in many ways have been more secure and always was by obscurity in the days of 2% market share in the bid bad windows world but the move to a unix based OS helped it become far more secure. Now they have rather stringent measures and methods that stop illegal access or code addition / installation. (Seperate T2 chip and SIP greatly contribute to this) This has its issues when trying to manage and they have their problems but I like them. (I do have a PC as well).
 
There's a bit of casual determinism discussed here that I don't think is that factual.

Having negotiated more technology related SLAs in my life than I care to think about, from both the supplier and purchaser side, it's not as doom and gloom if done carefully. I have similarly presided over 2 or 3 very big moves into the cloud from on-prem infrastructure.

The main pitfall I see people getting wrong is not having their own scope defined before courting providers, and then allowing their sales teams to define that scope for you. I think this results in some of the pain points mentioned here.

Size is the unavoidable beast in the room - the small companies who switch to outsourced don't really have the clout to be a priority, so if you're looking at huge providers like Microsoft, then you have to accept being somewhat anonymous. That being said, Microsoft's cloud offerings are exceptional, but only if what you need is squarely provided within their offerings. The support for those offerings is really first rate in my experience.

If you have anything over and above, you're on to a losing battle by trying to engage on your own without technical competency on site, as Leon has rightly pointed out. A good MSP who can broker is really what you're looking for in this case, and there are buckets and buckets to choose from.

Narrowing that list down will be dictated by your initial scope, and you may think to hire a consultant for the engagement process. Invariably a good place to start is MSPs that specialise in your vertical. They may not end up being who you go for, but it'll help you contextualise what you are looking for.

I don't think I'm in a position to offer proper consultancy right now, but I'm more than happy to have a chat with you and give some input on your situation and explain my experiences if relevant to yours.
 
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Having negotiated more technology related SLAs in my life than I care to think about, from both the supplier and purchaser side, it's not as doom and gloom if done carefully. I have similarly presided over 2 or 3 very big moves into the cloud from on-prem infrastructure.

The main pitfall I see people getting wrong is not having their own scope defined before courting providers, and then allowing their sales teams to define that scope for you. I think this results in some of the pain points mentioned here.

Size is the unavoidable beast in the room - the small companies who switch to outsourced don't really have the clout to be a priority, so if you're looking at huge providers like Microsoft, then you have to accept being somewhat anonymous. That being said, Microsoft's cloud offerings are exceptional, but only if what you need is squarely provided within their offerings. The support for those offerings is really first rate in my experience.

Having lived and breathed outsourcing for many years I have seen my fair share of successes and failures in almost equal number. I think Julian’s comments are definitely on point. My list of observations in no particular order and apologies if this is grandmother sucking eggs tuition.

- Decide what you absolutely need to have and cannot do without. What are you willing to pay a premium for to get the most insurance of it being delivered. What aspects are nice to have but you would not pay more for. And what is just a commodity. In other words know what you value and what you don’t.
- Try to visualise success from the relationship with the SP. If it is extracting as many price concessions as possible then don’t expect flexibility.
- Define scope as precisely as you can but also think about what happens if your needs change - as they will. You typically pay a price for flexibility especially if you reduce scope - SPs cannot take away all their overheads and usually not at the drop of a hat. Similarly it is usually easier to add some extra capacity but there might be lead times for major growth.
- Will the SP be there as long as you are? Due diligence and research is always a good investment.
- Data security should be as important to SP as you. If personal data involved there is even more need to get this right - but it is a two way street. If it is commercial data then putting that at risk could be putting your future at risk.

All very generic, but you would not believe the number of organisations that screw them up. Especially procurement departments who look on this like buying cabbages or nails. Hope you find a SP that evolves the service as your needs change and for whom client service is genuinely a core vale. Get a good one and then don’t have regrets that they make a reasonable profit too - but do have regular conversations about what both of you need to get out of the relationship. Benchmarking can work but don’t be surprised it it does not deliver repeatable results every time.
 
I've been on the other side of the fence (Supplier) outsourcing for the last 20 years.
One piece of advice:
Get an advisor/third party. Under no circumstances attempt to engage the suppliers and DIY the procurement.
Sure the big companies might get the larger advisors such as KMPG, Gartner or ISGOne, but there are plenty of really good one or two man shops that used to work for these guys or were on the other side of the fence that do an excellent job.
Make sure you interview a couple, get recommendations and someone who has experience in what you are trying to achieve (e.g. moving to cloud, sourcing boutique cloud service shops etc.).

Lastly, if you do move everything to Azure or AWS, you will still need a someone to provide the service wrap, patch the servers, laptops, architect the cloud accounts, transition the service etc. as the Cloud suppliers provide a toolbox not a complete solution although something like O365 comes close.
In any case the third party advisor will be able to advise.
 
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IT being acronym central, I’ve been patiently waiting for someone to use a phrase containing “the USP of the SP” but so far you lot have been a disappointment.
 
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