IT outsourcing is simply part of the way modern organizations do business today. This course will teach you the fundamental concepts of IT outsourcing and provide you with a framework to prepare for an outsourcing project.
Why Outsource and What to Outsource?
Hi everybody, and welcome to this course, IT Outsourcing - Preparing for an Outsourcing Initiative, where we are going to take a look at the things you need to do in order to prepare for an outsourcing project. My name is Tommy van Schaik, and I fill my days as an IT project manager working for the government and commercial organizations, advising and dealing with out sourcing initiatives. Outsourcing is just a part of the way modern organizations do business, and IT, because of the nature of the product, is a very suitable candidate for outsourcing. I believe that in this day and age, every IT professional should have at least a basic understanding of the outsourcing concepts in order to prepare themselves for the modern IT workplace. This course is the first course in the IT Outsourcing learning path, where we cover all phases of an IT outsourcing project, starting with this one, where we introduce the basic concepts and reasons behind outsourcing, the different outsourcing approaches you can use, and how to put together a good outsourcing strategy. By the end of this course, you will have a firm grasp of the outsourcing fundamentals, and you will have a good framework to get your outsourcing project off to a good start. So let's get started on this course, IT Outsourcing - Preparing for an Outsourcing Initiative, here at Pluralsight.
Hi everybody, and welcome back. We're going to continue this course on preparing an IT outsourcing initiative with this next module, Why Outsource and What to Outsource? In this module, we're going to look at the rationale behind outsourcing, and we're going to look at the different areas of IT that are suitable candidates for outsourcing initiatives. Having a good overview of the reasons behind outsourcing, and the different areas of IT that can be outsourced gives you a good foundation to understand some of the outsourcing-related decisions that organizations make. Alright, so first we'll look at the why behind outsourcing. Originally, outsourcing was almost exclusively about cutting costs, but nowadays organizations start outsourcing projects for a wide variety of organizational issues. We will discuss these issues, and how outsourcing could provide an answer to these problems that organizations are facing. Second, we will look at the different areas of IT and how suitable they are for outsourcing. As technology becomes better and better, more areas are easier to outsource. Especially now Infrastructure and Platform as a Service is really taking off, it is becoming way more attractive for organizations to look at putting some of their IT capabilities in a cloud environment. Alright then, let's get started on this module on the why and the what of outsourcing.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to another module in this course on preparing for an outsourcing initiative. We already covered the basic elements of why organizations outsource and what kind of IT capabilities are usually outsourced by organizations. Now let's take a look at the different strategies you can apply when outsourcing. We'll look at the different options, and explain the process of identifying the best possible solution for your organization. Alright, so the approach is going to be as follows. First, we're going to look at using a single vendor for your outsourcing, or perhaps you'll find it better to have multiple vendors involved in your outsourcing activities. Then we'll discuss the possibility of offshoring and nearshoring when you look beyond the borders of the country your company is situated in. Then we'll take a look at a cloud options, and how they impact the possibilities you have when it comes to outsourcing. Then we'll look at some less-common outsourcing models like crowdsourcing and microsourcing. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we'll provide you with a structured approach to determine the right outsourcing model for your individual organization. Alright, so that's the plan, so let's get started on this module.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another module in the course Preparing an Outsourcing Initiative. In the previous modules, we familiarized ourselves with the reasons to outsource, what kind of IT to outsource, and what kind of outsourcing options that are out there. In this module, we're going to present you with the framework that you can use to select and verify your outsourcing initiative, and we're going to be talking about how important it is to get support from all layers in the organization right from the start of the outsourcing project. So for selecting and validating your outsourcing initiative, you're going to need a good old-fashioned business case. And because outsourcing is such a multi-headed beast, it's important that you make it thorough, easy to understand, in such a way that you do not only convince yourself that this is a good idea, but also the people within the management, and even the people within the different IT departments of your organization. Then we're going to be talking about the buy in from the rest of the organization. If you are going to prepare for an outsourcing initiative, it's vital that you include everyone as early as possible within the project. This will create support and hugely improve the chances of turning your outsourcing project into a success. Alright then, let's get started on this module on Preparing for Outsourcing.