Whose Responsibility is it to Ensure Technology is Delivering Business Value?
The CIO is charged with delivering on IT effectiveness. But as companies move toward an outsourced delivery model for IT services, there is some confusion over the issue of who is responsible for ensuring technology is delivering business value. Who owns this– the business or the outsourced provider? There isn’t room for any grey area on who owns what. If you've outsourced some IT functions to a third party, you must deal with the issue of responsibility and holding people accountable, or risk dropping the ball during a critical time.
Holding the Outsourced Provider Accountable
Outsourced providers must focus on adding value to a project through variable resources. For businesses, one advantage of outsourcing is in lower costs, as well as alleviating some of the labor and personnel burden that can come from having to perform a growing array of services in-house. If your IT engineers are exhausted or innovation is lacking, outsourcing certain tasks can greatly improve IT delivery.
While there is a business advantage in outsourcing some responsibilities, the fact remains that outsourced organizations must provide standardized services. An outsourced provider does not have the time to tailor all services to every client's need, so they must develop broad standards to meet most needs. The 80/20 rule usually applies: the outsourced service provider will be able to meet 80% of your company's needs through these standard operating services or processes.
The Real Value Your Technology Provides Lies in the Remaining 20%
Company-specific innovations come from the 20% “uniqueness” a technology delivers. Standardized solutions offered by an outsourced provider can’t innovate on your behalf. To keep technology in line with business outcomes and continue to deliver the sort of value your colleagues and clients depend on, you cannot turn over IT innovation to a third party.
No matter how good your outsourced provider, the fact remains they do not know your 20%. On top of that, it is not in their business interest to ever come to know your 20%, as doing so would undermine the value they provide. As long as you rely on an outsourced provider, you will need to invest time in the 20% of your value the outsourced provider cannot service.
Ultimately, it is your responsibility to manage your own technology outcomes and ensure process and resources are delivering business value. Delegating outcomes will always leave you feeling the resource came up short. You own the outcome.
WholeStack Solutions provides proactive network monitoring and support, allowing your staff to spend more time improving IT effectiveness. By delegating the little things and focusing on the 20%, we can help you deliver real, lasting value by providing needed IT monitoring and support.
