ITM D

Post from Steve

I love this topic. It’s fascinating. I am living this question right now. I have great workers, good workers, difficult workers and a lazy worker. The main problem is you end up overloading the good workers. We have a lot to fix with our infrastructure and 50 projects and fires to put out almost every day. Some of the high priority visible projects can put us in a rare position in our field to be exclusive leaders. So other projects are revenue driven, others are basic upgrades, etc. # or 4 of these projects will increase the staff that we support, which will increase our workload. My problem is that the lazy and incompetent workers drag the department down and compromise what we are trying to do. I have a hard time hiring more workers when a few don’t do ¼ of what the others do. It’s a problem we need to fix, but being spread so thin (because our CIO (very hands on technically) left and a new CIO (very hands off technically) is learning) I am unable to micromanage and weed out the bad seeds. Hence the serious look at outsourcing. I have met with several companies that all promise that they can do the work, but that remains to be seen. We are a very specialized place that rarely is able to work with standard content from apps, we customize most apps. So the current team is very familiar with these details. I think outsourcing could work in a very specific way. The outsourcing company hires the employees, weeds out the bad, keeps the good. The same company also allows us to add/remove skilled workers at will. Meaning if there is a network problem, call in a networking guy, etc. All calls go to a call center, every call gets a ticket. There are draw backs, upsetting the employees and their peers. The culture shock change to the organization that are spoiled with instant gratification. This all may be necessary to move the organization forward. It’s a very hard road, that’s not getting any better now. Something needs to change. The cost is actually cheaper, depending on the level of services provided. Offshore outsourcing is definitely more cost effective, but I could see a lot of complaints piling up about this, mainly because everyone knows my staff and this would be very impersonal.

Post from Axel

Benefits to outsourcing: Company can focus on primary specialties and lowers costs.

Risks to outsourcing: Company can lose some or all control and can result in loss of knowledge

Benefits to offshoring: Takes advantage of cheaper economies

Risks to offshoring: Takes advantage of cheaper economies and political backlash

If I were a CEO of an organization, my main goal in this political climate is to be successful in more creative ways. Offshoring would have to be off-limits for now. I would, however, employ the smartest and brightest my organization could afford from all over the world. I would save money through outsourcing, but by use of contractor positions that would be embedded in the organization. I don't believe in outsourcing entire departments, but rather grow and shrink with demand as needed through the use of contractor positions.