Outsourcing
Gartner, 11/24/03: U.S. Hardware Support for Hire: Choosing Partnerships
Abstract: Hardware support companies compete to make their capabilities available to other IT companies for delivery to their own customers.
By Eric Rocco
Strategic Planning Assumption
By 2007, more than 75 percent of all hardware manufacturers' on-site support calls will be delivered by subcontracted labor forces (0.8 probability).
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Giga, 11/21/03: IT Trends 2004: Customer Service and Help Desk
John Ragsdale
Question
What are the key drivers and trends in customer service and help desk for 2004?
Answer
As documented in IdeaByte, IT Trends 2003, Midyear Update: Customer Service and Help Desk, John Ragsdale, many companies hit by the US economic recession have moved beyond cost containment to downsizing, reorganization and taking a fresh look at using software to automate and streamline support services. Support organizations, both internal and external, must continue to support customers with fewer resources, and the CEO is likely watching to see how they meet the challenge.
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Gartner, 11/26/03: Enterprises Must Consider Selective Sourcing of IP Telephony
Most companies have tended to buy their own telephony equipment and manage it on-site. By 2006, half of all enterprises will need to take a flexible approach to IP telephony, by mixing internal and external resources.
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Giga, 11/24/03: How to Structure Outsourced Support Calls When Deploying a New Technology
Robert McNeill and John Ragsdale
Question
How do outsourcers price the surge in help desk calls during an XP migration or technology refresh?
Answer
There are two forms of pricing available for outsourced support calls after an initial technology deployment, such as an Microsoft XP migration, facilities move or technology refresh: per-seat and per-call pricing. Perseat pricing is most common, although per-call pricing can be effective on a project-by-project basis, providing adequate systems are in place to increase ease of support.
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Gartner, 11/24/03: IT Service Market Isn't Positioned to Deliver Sustained Value
Intense emphasis on cost reduction by enterprises has dominated IT service market behaviors, which makes the market vulnerable to inevitable enterprise demands for IT innovation and paves the way for new entrants.
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Gartner, 11/24/03: 2004 Predictions: Service Delivery Models Are Key to Success
Upcoming changes in the IT services marketplace will challenge service line executives to safeguard profit margins while selectively investing to position for growth in 2006.
Gartner’s 2003 research has identified several emerging trends that are of immediate concern to service line executives:
• Falling IT services prices
• The emergence of IT utility and global delivery models (including offshore services)
• Focus on business processes
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Giga, 11/25/03: IT Trends 2004: Vendor Management
Robert McNeill
Question
What are the major drivers and trends within vendor management initiatives?
Answer
Considerable effort is required to evaluate, select, negotiate and manage vendors in the technology and services industry. On the demand side, the continuing fragmentation of the technology provider landscape and the greater interdependence of IT and business processes are making the selection of the right provider ever more difficult. On the supply side, the increased competition and an overall slowdown in technology spending is leading to significant vendor consolidation. As a result, organizations have become far more sophisticated and demanding in their overall IT sourcing approach.
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Giga, 12/1/03: IT Asset Management SLAs in Outsourcing Contracts
Robert McNeill
Question
We are trying to develop an SLA for ITAM accuracy in an outsourcing deal. Can Giga provide some guidelines?
Answer
In the last six months Giga has seen an increase in the number of requests from end users asking outsourcers to sign up for service-level agreements (SLAs) that prove accuracy of reporting in an asset repository. Outsourcers are beginning to use certain asset fields from an asset management database to indicate data integrity/accuracy for a SLA. These attributes include:
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Security
Gartner, 11/21/03: Magic Quadrant for North American MSSPs, 1H03
Three factors drove the North American managed security service provider market in 1H03: noncore competency outsourcing, intrusion detection system support, and malicious-code attack notification and response.
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IT Management
Giga, 11/19/03: IT Trends 2004: IP Address Management Systems
Thomas Mendel
Question
What are the key market drivers and trends regarding IP address management systems for 2004?
Answer
IP address management systems continue to be deployed in enterprises and service providers alike to keep pace with the increasing need to control IP addresses, DNS-name resolution and DHCP in networking environments. However, the longer than expected economic downturn has shifted the market focus away from new features and functions toward a focus on consolidating existing point solutions into coherent IP address management systems.
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Giga, 11/25/03: IBM Orchestrator — Changing the Dynamics of On-Demand Computing
Richard Fichera
IBM’s recent announcement of its combined suite of the IBM Tivoli Intelligent ThinkDynamic Orchestrator and IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager products, which are the productized versions of technology that IBM purchased this year from Think Dynamics, introduces a radical change into the competitive landscape surrounding organic IT. This change positions IBM at the forefront of vendors attempting to deliver policybased automation of the complex data center environment based on application service rather than infrastructure component performance.
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Giga, 11/25/03: IT Trends 2004: Enterprise Infrastructure Management
Thomas Mendel and Jean-Pierre Garbani
In 2004, the market for enterprise infrastructure management technologies will be characterized by three main trends:
• The growing importance of management functions in the solution mix acquired by enterprises
• An increased focus on automation at the installation, problem resolution and impact evaluation levels
• An acceleration in vendor consolidation
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