Outsourcing

8 Pages 2043 Words

as less intimidating and, also, less risky from a business perspective, at least as view from their pre-September thinking. With a few rather obvious guidelines in place, a business consultant (certainly an information technology business consultant) should be able to recommend to a client what aspects of the client's business can and should be outsourced. The consultant can also be very helpful in selecting an appropriate source of those services as well as make suggestions as to how to approach outsourcing contractually. This requires some preparation and awareness, but it only involves alerting the client to possibilities as part of an analysis of business functions, some of which may now be considered from a new security perspective.
Outsourcing Today
Exploring the Internet for outsourcing information consistently leads to the obvious. For example, outsourcing has become a major element of the high-tech startup environment over the past couple of years. There have been (and are) many new high-tech companies trying to convince low-tech companies of the advantages of e-business. Indeed, many high-tech outsourcing marketers touted services to their high-tech peers, proclaiming the advantages of focusing on their high-tech core-business while outsourcing everything else. Of course, much of this was easier to sell prior to September, before security and reliability became a central concern throughout the industry.
High-tech to high-tech marketing results from the emergence of high-tech access to cheap labor (e.g., programming, data entry, and accounting) from other countries, more immediate access to state-of-the art software (discussed below), and access to expert problem solvers for future non-core business issues that make outsourcing attractive from a risk-sharing perspective. Unfortunately, some of these overseas labor cost savings advantages are decreasingly attractive due to other problems, including the emergent securi...