What to keep in mind when considering IT outsourcing

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Outsourcing IT needs is a good way for businesses to acquire the technical skills and resources they require without breaking the bank hiring in-house talent. Business leaders need to be mindful about how they approach this matter, however, as not all outsourcing opportunities will provide the expected value and return on investment. There are important considerations to make when viewing IT outsourcing as a potential solution to labor, budget and performance woes. If business leaders rush into an agreement with the wrong organization, they may be tied to a poor IT relationship.

When is it right to outsource IT?
Some organizations get it wrong right out of the gate by turning to a third party for their IT needs when their circumstances did not really point to outsourcing as a viable solution. So, how do businesses know when it is a good time to begin thinking about IT outsourcing? Some of the tell-tale signs include:

  • "Outsourcing can be an attractive alternative to hiring local talent."

    Technical support costs are getting out of control – Maintaining an internal IT team is rarely cheap, but in some cases those costs can threaten the profitability of an entire business. As IT World Canada contributor Robert Cordray noted, there are a lot of underlying expenses to hiring an employee beyond his or her base salary. For example, health insurance, transportation reimbursement programs and retirement programs can all add considerable costs to maintaining a team of in-house IT staff. If an organization is in an especially competitive market, being able to attract top local talent without paying top dollar can be all but impossible. As such, outsourcing can be an attractive alternative in such scenarios.

  • Many employees are working remotely – More organizations are embracing the concept of telecommuting in an attempt to improve staff satisfaction and increase productivity. According to the 2014 National Study of Employers, around 67 percent of businesses now allow full-time employees to work remotely in some capacity. The thing is, if fewer employees are actually working from the office, what sense does it make to keep a dedicated in-house IT team on staff? After all, a big chunk of the IT issues those employees will run into will be occurring at home, in a coffee shop or wherever else they may choose to work.

    "[A]ny company that rarely has workers in the office should not go to great lengths to get a full time IT department in place," Cordray wrote. "There won't be enough work for them to do. Instead, it's better to get outsourced help that only needs to be paid when issues occur."

  • The business is in a state of flux – It can be extremely difficult for internal IT teams to keep up with a quickly changing business environment. This is especially true for organizations that are in the midst of rapid expansion. In those situations, IT needs can quickly outpace available resources, leaving staff overworked and outmatched. IT outsourcing can provide some much-needed relief and facilitate expansion without running into any significant growing pains.
IT outsourcing can help sustain business growth.IT outsourcing can help sustain business growth.

Getting started on the right foot
Once business leaders have determined that outsourcing IT makes sense for their organization, they need to consider what exactly a successful outsourcing relationship looks like for them. There are many strategies to potentially pursue here, so it is important that businesses find one that closely aligns with their own needs and goals.

For example, offshoring IT to workers located in places like India or Romania may not be suitable for every company. Time zone and language differences could prove to be rather tough obstacles to overcome. That is why nearshoring has grown in popularity in recent years, giving businesses an alternative to paying high prices for local talent or sacrificing communication and collaboration opportunities by working with offshore teams.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that cost should never be the overriding factor when deciding on an outsourcing partner. In the example above, an offshore team may come with a lower price tag, but the headaches that arise from relying on IT staff working on the other side of the globe could easily offset any cost savings. Forbes contributor Christian Burns McBeth explained that focusing too much on IT vendor invoices can blind an organization to the savings it is gaining elsewhere. 

"The alternative (and the way to avoid a royal mess) is to examine whether IT outsourcing aligns with your long-term strategic plans, goals, and objectives," McBeth wrote. He added, "As you can see, there's a lot more at stake here than just dollars and cents."

Think of it this way: How much would it cost to hire the same team in-house? This is especially important to keep in mind when looking at the ROI of managed services. Maintaining on-site IT equipment is an expensive proposition. By outsourcing IT needs through a trusted, local managed services provider, businesses can gain all the functionality they require while keeping their costs in check.

Backup's role in disaster recovery

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The easiest way to give a computer-savvy person a heart attack is to tell them you don't back up your data. Not backing up important information is a lot like driving a car without a seatbelt: You'll probably be fine 99.99 percent of the time, but that .01 percent could ruin your life.

In the same way, not investing in online backup services for important company data could be the death of a business when disaster strikes. Much like a seatbelt, you never really need your data backed up until you need it. And then you really need it. 

But despite the fact that backup is a key component to making it through a trying time, it is certainly no replacement for an actual disaster recovery plan. 

A backup horror story
Many people think that simply backing up data is the only thing necessary to deal with a troublesome event. This could not be further from the truth, and IT professionals at the Parish of Orleans Civil District Court in Louisiana can attest to this. On Oct. 25, 2010, both of the servers holing all of the conveyance and mortgage records for the courthouse crashed without any warning. Thankfully, the courthouse had paid for online backup services and had all of its data stored offsite. 

Or so it thought.

As it turns out, the company that had been handling the online backup had sent out a software update to all of its clients a little while before the crash. Although the IT department at the courthouse believed that they had installed the update, it turned out that they had not. This resulted in the courthouse losing digital mortgage records from the past year. 

Thankfully, paper copies did exist for all the lost data, but the point here is that this courthouse relied solely on data backup rather than having a good disaster recovery plan in place – and lost big because of it. Backup is a great first step toward planning for a disastrous event, but that's all it is: a first step. The next step, and perhaps the most important one, is developing a disaster recovery plan with a firm that specializes in them. 

This is why ISG Technology is such an interesting and powerful ally. Specializing in both online backup services and disaster recovery, ISG allows businesses to combine both of these services into a protective shield to fend off business continuity problems. 

Cloud infrastructure market showing steady growth

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The cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service market is growing at an accelerated rate, with providers bringing in increased revenue, according to IT analyst firm Gartner.

A recent Gartner report found that global spending on cloud IaaS solutions will reach almost $16.5 billion in 2015, an increase of more than 32 percent from last year. As more businesses move an increasing number of workloads to the cloud, the market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent through 2019.

"10% of CIOs consider cloud IaaS their default infrastructure option."

Last year the absolute growth of public IaaS workloads surpassed on-premises workload growth of any type for the first time, the Gartner report revealed. According to a survey of CIOs conducted by Gartner, cloud IaaS is considered an infrastructure option by 83 percent of CIOs and 10 percent already deem it their default choice.

This growth in the IaaS market is also causing a consolidation of service providers, according to Gartner vice president and analyst Lydia Leong. The market is rapidly revolving around a small number of trusted service providers, so IT buyers will need to select their vendors carefully.

"We urge buyers to be extremely cautious when selecting providers; ask specific and detailed questions about the provider's roadmap for the service, and seek contractual commitments that do not permit the provider to modify substantially or to discontinue the offering without at least 12 months' notice," said Leong.

The cloud IaaS market is growing and providers are consolidating.The cloud IaaS market is growing and providers are consolidating.

IaaS proves a versatile tool
Cloud IaaS solutions can be put to work for practically any use case that can reasonably be hosted on virtual servers, but the most common are development and testing environments, high performance computers and batch processing, Web-based apps and non-critical internal business applications. Gartner suggested that businesses adopting a cloud IaaS solution operate in two essential modes, otherwise known as bimodal IT. This allows them to keep sight of what is needed to maintain IT operations while at the same time innovating with new, digital possibilities.

"Cloud IaaS can now be used to run most workloads, although not every provider can run every type of workload well," said Leong. "Cloud IaaS is not a commodity. Providers vary significantly in their features, performance, cost and business terms. Although in theory, cloud IaaS has very little lock-in, in truth, cloud IaaS is not merely a matter of hardware rental, but an entire data center ecosystem as a service. The more you use its management capabilities, the more value you will receive from the offering, but the more you will be tied to that particular service offering."

When first starting, most organizations deploy cloud IaaS for mode 2, which are agile IT projects that may be on the periphery of the organization's IT needs but can still have a major impact for the business. As the company becomes more comfortable with its use of IaaS over time, some organizations may choose to use it in Mode 1, for traditional IT projects.

As time goes on, many enterprises, especially those in the mid-market, will likely migrate away from operating their own computing facilities and instead host their workloads in a data center run by a service provider and rely primarily on infrastructure in the cloud.

Basic tips to avoid cybercrime

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With people using the Internet for banking, shopping, socializing and everything in between, the risk of falling victim to a cybercrime scheme has never been more real. In fact, a CNNMoney report found that 110 million American adults were hacked in 2014 alone. Considering this number is 47 percent of the U.S. adult population, it’s obvious that online security is just as much of a concern for people as physical security.

And while these numbers are frightening in their own right, an even scarier thought is how drastically unprepared some businesses are for cyberattacks. A McAfee report found that about 90 percent of small-to-medium-sized businesses don’t use data protection of any kind for themselves or their clients.

Statistics like this make dealing with smaller businesses seem risky, and as such every small business should make cybersecurity a top priority. To this end, this list of very basic online practices has been compiled in order to make navigating the Internet safer.

Don’t click on something unless you are 100 percent sure what it is: This may seem very basic, however, many people don’t fully understand how risky it is to click a link they aren’t absolutely sure about. Frank Heidt, CEO of Leviathan Security Group, gave a TED talk about this very topic. In the speech, he stated that the easiest way to hack someone in a particular company is through their loved ones.

A CEO’s computer will have very specific security protocols, but his child’s computer probably won’t. All a hacker has to do is gain access to the child’s computer and then send the CEO a message using the child’s email address. This email, which will look identical to any other sent by the child, will contain a piece of malware in the form of a seemingly harmless clickable link. Once clicked, this virus will run through the CEO’s computer and will eventually require malware removal across the entire company’s network. The takeaway from this is that no part of your online experience is 100 percent safe, and any and all links should remain suspect.

Update your software: With the fast-paced nature of modern technologies, keeping software up-to-date can be extremely hard for some smaller companies. And even though your business might be getting along just fine with Windows XP, for example, you’re actually putting yourself in danger.

On April 8, 2014, Windows announced that it would no longer be putting out updates for Windows XP. This means that any security holes in the software that need patching will not be fixed, and that hackers will be free to exploit them. Having up-to-date software not only gives clients a better experience with the company, but it also makes sure their data is better protected.

Keep passwords complex: Although most people know to keep passwords hard to crack, few know how truly important it is to keep passwords complex. A Bloomberg study about password complexity showed how making a few tiny changes could drastically change a hacker’s ability to access your computer. The article stated that a six-word, all lowercase password takes a hacker’s computer about 10 minutes to crack on average. However, if you were to add an uppercase letter and a number/symbol to that password, the time to crack it jumps to 463 years.

Contact a company that deals in cybersecurity: If you had to pick only one of these tips to follow, this one would definitely be the one to choose. Companies like ISG Technology stay current with their cybersecurity knowledge, and can help with everything from malware removal to safe data storage. They can also help assess the security of your company’s network, ensuring that both company and client information stay out of the hands of hackers.

Benefits of outsourcing IT needs

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Outsourcing work that cannot effectively be done in-house is a huge part of how companies should do business. A study by The Economist on modern outsourcing found that manufacturers typically outsource 70 to 80 percent of their finished products. The same study also found that 90 percent of these companies saw outsourcing as playing a key role in their growth strategies.

So, if these companies can outsource their manufacturing needs, why are so many businesses afraid of doing the same for their IT department and data management?

What can outsourced IT provide companies?
Of course, companies should never completely do away with their own IT departments. That being said, allowing a separate entity to handle certain aspects of the company's IT needs allows the business's internal IT personnel the chance to work on new ideas.

As Howard Baldwin stated in an article for Forbes, IT department's regularly get bogged down in "fire-fighting mode – reacting to every issue that (comes) up to keep things up and running." When this happens, IT employees aren't free to pursue interesting endeavors that may innovate the company. By outsourcing these everyday occurrences and other projects to an outside firm, employees can truly change how a company uses the technology available to it.

A perfect example of this would be IT support for all the software and technologies businesses deal with on a regular basis. Sure, software providers are usually there to give support on their products. However, these software providers simply cannot cope with the system wide consequences of using their products in terms of the specific kinds of technology a company is using.

This is something an internal IT department could certainly deal with, however, something so banal would simply take away from their ability to develop the company. Outsourced IT companies are more than happy to take on this responsibility, as well as other mundane tasks such as malware removal and helping companies switch to a colocation of data. 

Business continuity and brand image

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Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. In business terms, this means that downtime is simply inevitable. And while downtime is extremely expensive in terms of getting business up and running again, yet another extreme expense it causes is a damaged brand image. Disaster recovery planning is perhaps the most important part of a company’s brand. This is because of the huge stress clients put on consistency and data protection with the companies they do business with.

Consistency is key
Being able to do business in a consistent and reliable manner is what separates successful companies from the ones that fall by the wayside. As Kristi Jackson, founder of Women CEO Project, stated, “consistency helps build trust with consumers and other businesses because they see your brand or results frequently and know you mean business.” When a person walks into an Italian restaurant, it’s because they want Italian food. If they arrive one day and find the restaurant is serving sushi – or worse, no food at all – they are going to be extremely disappointed with their visit. The same can be applied to any other business. If a business has had a lot of downtime due to poor disaster recovery, clients are going to be frustrated.

This is exactly why business continuity plans are so important to a business’s clients. As Continuity Insights stated, a company’s brand belongs to the clients more than it does to the company itself. This is because clients can help build a company’s brand image or destroy it if they see fit.

Robust business continuity plans, such as those offered by ISG Technology, right the ship when things are not going well. The reason a good plan is so important is because it guides how employees act in a crisis. DisasterRecovery.org explained that when companies have good business continuity plans, employees can take a more educated and confident role in the company’s recovery process. This means less panic on the side of the employees, which means less downtime for the company, which means less money and brand image lost. Getting the company back on its feet after a run in with a disaster is at the heart of consistency and good brand imaging, and should be a key concern for those trying to take their business to the next level.

Cloud vs. colocation: What's the best option?

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Technology is changing more rapidly than ever before, and as such, the decision to keep data on-site or outsource it is becoming more and more relevant. While many companies may decide to keep their storage needs in-house, a wide range of businesses simply do not have this capacity or they choose not to take on this responsibility.

The reasons for this vary, however, the point is that some companies would absolutely benefit from storing data off-site. It is at this point that these companies must decide between cloud services, colocation or a combination of the two.

Cloud or colocation: Which is best for your company?
To begin, it is important to define cloud storage and colocation so that an informed decision about their differences can be made. Cloud services are where a cloud provider gives a company the ability to remotely access their resources and stores everything in the own data center environment. 

While this limits the hardware options a company can choose from, it gives the added bonus of keeping the responsibility of all system upkeep firmly in the hands of the cloud provider. Companies with a weak IT infrastructure or even those wishing to keep their IT department focused on a limited number of internal goals would absolutely benefit from cloud services and should put some serious thought into considering their usefulness.

Colocation, on the other hand, is where companies purchase and bring their own equipment to an outside data center with the added bonus of sharing power and other hardware needs with fellow tenants. Basically, this option is like renting an apartment and having other companies with similar data management needs as roommates. Colocation also allows for companies to have their data stored offsite, which gives an extra amount of security in terms of disaster recovery and business continuity.

It is these specific benefits that have lead consulting firm Vanson Borne to predict that colocation is going to be the biggest outsourcing approach over the next year. While there are many advantages to colocation, companies should understand the responsibility of this sort of data storage arrangement.

Colocation requires that companies purchase all their own hardware, and as such a deep knowledge of these systems is typically needed in order to choose the correct equipment necessary for their specific needs. Thankfully, colocation experts such as ISG Technology have a wide understanding of these infrastructures and can help clients with their colocation needs. 

Obviously, any company that is deciding between these two options needs to think long and hard about its data storage needs. Does the company need to focus more on internal IT needs than it does the management of data storage hardware? Or does the company not want to use another company's server to store data? Perhaps some data can be stored with a cloud service provider while other data is best kept within hardware owned by the company. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, as well as to combining the two in a more hybrid arrangement. There is no "better" option because every company's needs differ, and as such, each company needs to come to the understanding of which option is best for its specific requirements. 

Virtualization of the classroom

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It's no secret that many schools and districts in America are severely underfunded. Despite being the best way to guarantee an educated and prosperous populace, education in America has gone through some serious budget cuts since the recession in 2008. In fact, a review of the 2013-2014 school year by state found that 35 states are providing less funding per student than they did before the recession. And while this needs to be worked on at a governmental policy level, as it stands, schools have to make due with what they have. 

That being said, costs need to be cut where they can. With this in mind, virtualization of computer and IT systems within schools is emerging as an effective way to use a budget effectively while still providing the technological education necessary to thrive in the modern world. 

Virtualization: What is it and how is it cost-effective for schools?
In order to grasp why virtualization is so beneficial for the education system, it's important to fully understand what it is. Basically, there are two types of virtualization. The first has to do with a school's use of servers. Server virtualization allows a single physical server to act as multiple by housing many virtual ones in one machine.

This has a dual effect in terms of cost-cutting. First, it cuts down on the physical costs of multiple servers. With machines with zero VMs, 95 percent of a server's capacity isn't being used in the current model. If schools were to virtualize, their hardware costs in terms of servers would plummet as they began to use servers more effectively and efficiently.

Server virtualization would also reduce costs by allowing different school districts to share files more easily. As new instructional materials are distributed, sharing of these materials in a virtual environment is typically as simple as a file copy operation. 

The second common type of virtualization is that of the desktop. As knowledge of computers becomes more and more necessary to function within the modern world, classrooms will need to continue to add them into curricula. As this happens, students will need a desktop specific to their classes and their schedule. Before virtualization, a student would need to be given a specific laptop if the school wished for them to have a desktop catered to the student's needs in each of their classrooms.

However, desktop virtualization allows for a student's workplace to follow them from class to class without the necessity of a specific laptop assigned to them. This practice also allows for a greater safety in terms of the students files in a disaster recovery scenario. If a computer the student is working on crashes or stops working for whatever reason, their entire desktop can be moved from one work station to another without any level of difficulty. This not only saves money in terms of technical support, as a student who can't access their files would need help or risk missing the day's lesson, but it also saves the headache of having to start from scratch. 

What to know about letting employees bring devices from home

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The bring-your-own-device movement has been getting serious traction lately, as the amount of technology owned by employees continues to go up. Whether it be their personal phone, tablet or even laptop, people really seem to like the idea of having their own tech at work. And this recent BYOD trend doesn't seem to be slowing down. In fact, research firm Gartner said approximately 70 percent of mobile workers will be using their own smart devices rather than those given to them by their company by 2018. With those kinds of numbers, it's no wonder that many companies are gearing up for the BYOD revolution. 

BYOD: The risks and rewards
Just like every trend, there are positives and negatives to letting employees bring their own electronics to work. The simplest and perhaps the most obvious of the positives is that people like their own devices. Employees don't just grab the first phone or computer that catches their eye. They take enormous amounts of time and energy to figure out what device is right for them. There is a multitude of things a device can offer someone, and allowing employees to tailor their work devices to their own wants and needs is certainly a benefit to both productivity and employee morale. 

Another positive point to consider with BYOD is the fact that employees upgrade their own devices at a much more rapid pace than their employers. According to eMarketer, about 54 percent of smartphone users plan to buy a new device within the next 12 months. Any company attempting to keep their own hardware this current would most certainly run itself into the ground. It's best to let employees worry about having the most current device.

Despite the many positives to BYOD, there are also some risks every company should consider. The biggest problem a company implementing a BYOD plan is likely to run into is the fact that it is extremely hard to tell employees what they can and can't do with their own devices. People get used to surfing the Web on their personal laptops, and while this is fine if the device is strictly for personal use, it becomes a problem when the device is brought into the office. It's very easy to tell an employee what they can and can't do with company-owned property, but it becomes a little harder when the employees own those devices. Any company considering BYOD should express these concerns with employees if they wish to keep productivity at peak levels. 

Aside from productivity, there is also a sizeable security risk from employees using BYOD hardware like they would at home. Something as simple as an employee downloading apps on their phone allows third-party access to company data. This is due to the relative simplicity of developing mobile viruses and can lead to the necessity of malware removal. Again, companies considering letting employees bring their own devices into work need to instruct these people in the correct use of devices. 

But companies shouldn't let the risks scare them away. With help from BYOD experts like ISG Technology, allowing employees to bring their own equipment can have a multitude of benefits without any downsides. 

Data lost is money lost

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When people think of Google, they tend to imagine the search engine giant as an indestructible force in the technical world. It would seem that Google is such a big player that it can handle any and all obstacles thrown in its way. Google's recent foray into literally any part of the technology industry it sees fit to invest in shows the scale at which the company operates. And while Google's data is probably more secure than the average company from hacking attempts, one force it simply can't match is that of Mother Nature.

Nature's power over man was proven recently when one of Google's Belgian data centers was struck by lightening four times. Although a vast majority of data survived (well over 99 percent, in fact) the point still remains that there are some problems that even the biggest of companies simply can't avoid. If Google's data storage is at risk, how can any other company even hope to protect itself from every single threat imaginable?

The real cost of data loss: Downtime
As any company that has lost data can attest, one of the most frustrating parts about losing data is the amount of time and money it takes to get the company up and running again. In order to find out just how much money data loss and downtime costs companies, EMC Corporation spoke to 3,300 IT professions from 24 countries in 2014. A SecurityWeek article about the study reported that organizations of more than 250 people lost some $1.7 trillion due to downtime and data loss in 2014 alone.

That's quite a lot of money to be lost and only speaks to the sheer, unimaginable magnitude of the problem that is data loss. To compound this, the massive amount of lost revenue felt by companies due to this problem is only made worse considering the study's finding that 64 percent of surveyed enterprises ran into downtime or data loss in the past year.

This kind of data should be a rude awakening to companies that think they are above the threat of data loss. No one is completely safe from data loss, and the only way a company can truly protects itself is to back up its data as much as possible. A robust online backup service, such as what is offered by ISG Technology, is peace of mind in a world where industry heavy-hitters like Google can lose data in a freak accident.