Tag Archives: management

Survey Results: Culture shift toward the cloud and IT outsourcing

A recent survey of IT and business decision makers worldwide illustrated a growing popularity in cloud computing technology across a variety of industries.

Change in perspective
The survey showed nearly 60 percent of respondents believe organizations should place the priority on outsourced IT services and infrastructure over in-house services, as owning and operating in-house IT services drives up costs and waste. The response to the survey in 2012 is significantly different than data collected just two years prior.

In 2010, the same survey reported 38 percent of IT experts and business decision makers attributed IT ownership and management with waste in resources and higher costs. Thus, organizations are shifting the way they analyze and approach IT services, opting to outsource certain responsibilities to third-party providers to improve efficiency and boost bottom line numbers.

"IT departments are now looking to strengthen collaboration, efficiency and competitive agility – and they’re turning to secure, outsourced environments and cloud computing to help meet their objectives," said Bill Fathers, who worked on the survey.

Worldwide shift
The survey found the need for outsourced IT services to benefit cost reductions and time management is seen most prominently in the United States, the U.K. and Japan, where more than half of all decision makers have increased their outsourcing over the past 12 months.

In the United States, 56 percent of IT executives keep the majority of their IT infrastructure in-house, while 78 percent of Japanese decision makers rely on in-house services. However, 85 percent of organizations across the globe are opting for cloud computing technology as part of their latest IT upgrades, showing a continuing momentum toward less infrastructure-reliant solutions and more focus on outsourcing IT services.

What it means
By working with a third-party IT services provider, companies of all industries can save time, money, resources and manpower normally dedicated to running a network or other IT services and use them elsewhere in the business.

Allowing an IT services provider to take care of time-consuming tasks, employees and IT departments can spend their time on other specialty projects for the company to help move the business into new markets. IT services providers also specialize in various tasks and operations, allowing them to complete certain duties with less waste than an average company or IT department would be able to.

Source: http://info.oxford-consulting.com/blog/bid/135105/Survey-Results-Culture-shift-toward-the-cloud-and-IT-outsourcing

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Mobile Cloud Strategy Revealed

As it is very sensible to use aprivate cloud environment for management, security, and other aspects of mobile applications, it can be expected that mobile devices will soon be the driving force in cloud computing, and vice versa. However, getting to that point will require investment and planning.

A number of companies have already started moving in this direction. For instance, the December 2011 survey of 3,645 IT decision-makers in 8 countries revealed that about a 3rd of the responders believe providing information access to different devices is their main motivation for implementing cloud computing. The survey also proved that cutting costs was only the third most popular reason for resorting to cloud.

With their integration of CMS access for mobile devices into their private cloud, Marcus & Millichap has basically created a mobile cloud. Erie Insurance’s senior VP Eric Miller believes they should prioritize mobile apps first and then port the apps later to mobile, since mobile platforms have more limitations than PCs, which means the apps they create will be more adaptable and scalable compared to the other way around.

One of the challenges encountered by Erie Insurance is the decision on whether to create a Web portal that can adapt itself to any device that connects to it, or to develop a device-specific app. The firm decided to use both approaches instead. For example, customers who use the iPhone can submit photos of an auto accident using the First Notice of Loss app on the iTunes store, with the photo being stored on Erie’s back end servers. But the company also has a web portal that can do the same thing using any mobile device.

According to Juniper Research, the market for cloud-based mobile applications can be expected to grow almost 90% from 2009 to 2014, with ABI Research reporting more than 240 million business customers will have access to cloud computing services through a mobile device by 2015, and the numbers could only increase from there.

As a matter of fact, some would go so far as to state that the sheer number and variety of mobile devices in a given enterprise means that the only means of management would be a centralized method such as a mobile cloud. Any other way of management would not be able to scale effectively, if at all.

Mobile Computing is Different From Mobile Cloud Computing

Even though they sound the same, mobile computing and mobile cloud computingis not the same thing. Basically, mobile computing only requires apps to run on a mobile device natively, with the application itself and all required data stored on the device.

Regular mobile computing has few advantages, particularly with regards to performance. Since the application is run locally on the device, there are no latency and bandwidth problems. However, mobile applications that run natively usually have limited functionality and are not business-class apps. This is why it’s very rare for native applications to be used as serious front ends for database queries.

Mobile cloud computing, on the other hand, runs applications on servers that reside in the cloud. The application data is also stored in the cloud, with only the results being fed back to the mobile device via the Internet.

Mobile cloud computing has the advantage of allowing users to run more robust applications, barring some security concerns. The biggest hurdles they face is that the apps can be subject to latency and network bandwidth issues during the transfer of data between the cloud and the mobile device.The problem with lower bandwidth and a tendency to have intermittent connectivity can be addressed bydevelopers programming the apps with these limitations in mind.

While markedly different, mobile computing and mobile cloud computing are still related to each other since they both involve moving “state” (applications and/or data) from the client to the server.

Creating a Mobile Cloud Environment

Security is a big consideration when it comes to creating a mobile cloud environment, primarily because data must be moved between mobile devices and the cloud via off-site networks. Application development and device management are also important factors, and how organizations approach them will determine the maximum usability of the mobile cloud:

  • Security – making sure that data and application are both protected during normal use and when mobile devices are lost
  • Mobile Application Development – organizations need to consider whether to build their own apps or purchase custom ones form third parties, providing their own app store or using the ones from Apple and Google, and whether to limit employees to a specific app or not.
  • Mobile Device Management – organizations also need to think about whether they will provide employees with company-approved devices or implement a BYOD (bring your own device) policy. Enterprises can take advantage of mobile device management and mobile app management in order to turn their private cloud into a mobile cloud.
Shoring Up Security For Mobile OSes

For the majority of organizations these days, mobile devices access their cloud via the Internet, which is not a good idea as poking a hole in the company’s firewall in order to accommodate a worker’s device is basically the same as poking a hole in the firewall for anyone in the world. There should be an effort to secure a gateway that is specific to mobile devices.

BYOD is another aspect of mobile cloud computing that can introduce security issues. There needs to be a way to ensure that the apps are secure and that the device itself can’t be compromised if it falls into the wrong hands, since a hacker can basically grab the app while it’s being downloaded between the device or just intercept the packets of data going back and forth between the device and the cloud.

Real Estate Brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap handles these security issues by restricting across the board access to corporate databases, and only allowing access to secured daa (such as buildings for sale, inventory, research reports) via a Cisco VPN and a web browser on their tablet, computer, or phone. Agents must access an application providing a view of the inventory database via a browser.

Currently, Marcus & Millichap does not allow remote users to change data, as they need a regional manager to approve changes to status first, further ensuring that the company isn’t vulnerable to outside attacks. During the design of applications, developers always assume that the phone can be lost, but majority of security contingencies will step on the feet of usability. So at the end of the day, there needs to be a coordinated effort between the security folks and the usability group in order to reach a compromise: a secure, yet functional mobile strategy.

source: http://cloudtimes.org/2012/09/02/mobile-cloud-strategy-revealed/

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How and Why Vendor Management Can Improve BPO Performance

BPO buyer organizations talk the talk when it comes to governance and include it in their contracts, but many are not walking the walk. Thorough BPO vendor management is inconsistent at best, and this puts BPO engagements at risk as poor management of the relationship typically erodes value over time.

That said, there is typically plenty of opportunity for interaction and communication to improve, and buyer organizations should be looking for ways to stabilize and properly execute their vendor management practices as they can provide significant value to both parties in a BPO service delivery relationship.

The Three Layers of BPO Governance
A critical part of BPO vendor management is ensuring that once the structure and cadence of the vendor-buyer relationship has been established, governance then occurs at three layers: tactical, operational, and executive. The tactical layer involves topics and issues which are resolved in daily or weekly meetings and are directly related to executing project tasks and resolving specific concerns affecting daily services activities. The operational layer involves topics and issues which are resolved in weekly or monthly meetings, such as reviews of metrics, reports on service level agreements (SLAs), proposed contract changes, and higher-level productivity and process improvements.

Meanwhile, the executive layer involves topics and issues which are resolved in quarterly or seasonal meetings between high-level executives on the vendor and buyer sides. These include escalated issues that significantly affect performance, trend analysis, and strategic issues such as mergers and acquisitions and/or changes in IT infrastructure which may change the direction of a BPO program. Elements of the executive layer are often overlooked, but highly beneficial to both parties in the relationship, such as helping to align strategic objectives.

In addition, the vendor can showcase other services in its portfolio that may provide value to the buyer, and the buyer can identify specific needs not getting adequately addressed. Both parties can share meaningful feedback and insights that are not talked about on a day-to-day basis, but can provide significant value over time.

Ensuring Your Scorecard Meets Your Needs
A well-executed and developed vendor scorecard is critical to effective vendor management. But while most BPO buyers keep some kind of scorecard, it often contains the wrong information. A properly developed BPO vendor scorecard covers three categories of metrics: contract compliance, operational performance, and strategic planning.

• Contract compliance measures the vendor’s fulfillment of contract obligations such as invoicing, reporting, and change control.

• Operational performance, which involves meeting metrics such as SLAs and key performance indicators (KPIs), ideally should align with contract compliance and provide clarity to any performance issues and resulting service level credits.

• Strategic planning relates to high-level decisions that set the future course of the BPO relationship.

A challenge for many BPO buyers is that a “green” scorecard is not necessarily indicative of the overall health of the vendor-buyer relationship – buyers may still be unhappy with the services they are getting. For many buyers, this is because they defined metrics that do not necessarily conform with performance aspects that are truly meaningful to the enterprise.  For others, this is because metrics such as SLAs and KPIs typically measure quantitative results, such as how many customer calls are handled per agent per shift at a call center. They do not, however, measure qualitative results, such as risk and customer satisfaction.

In addition, too many BPO buyers use their scorecards to measure generic, “industry standard” results. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, unless a scorecard also measures results specific to a buyer’s situation, it will offer an incomplete picture of what is going on. For example, a buyer organization may routinely pay early in order to receive early payment discounts, and the critical performance measurements should take this factor into consideration.

Communication is Key
To properly measure both quantitative and qualitative results and ensure a healthy vendor-buyer relationship, BPO buyers should actively communicate with their vendors as part of any vendor management program. Too often, organizations don’t actively invest in communicating with their BPO vendors, and see both satisfaction and performance degrade. At a certain point, perception of performance becomes more important than performance itself, and poor performance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can take a while to gather enough evidence to determine whether a vendor management program is working.

Ideally, the vendor-buyer relationship should grow stronger over time as communication practices improve and vendor performance enhances credibility and trust.  That is when you know you have an effective vendor management process in place – when the strength of the interaction increases as the relationship matures.

Source:http://bpooutcomes.com/vendor-mgmt-bpo-performance/

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IT Outsourcing: What You Don’t Know, Might Be Costing You

For many companies, the management of IT outsourcing is becoming increasingly complicated, problematic – and expensive. While there’s no question that outsourcing can help fill gaps in IT department services, there’s also a growing consensus that confusion regarding negotiated terms and conditions, lack of transparency, and faulty integration of cost and utilisation reporting can cause the vendor relationship to spiral out of control.

Despite best efforts to get their arms around technology consulting, project labor and support services, many CIOs now can’t help but look at their provider’s monthly bill and wonder:

  • Are we being as efficient as possible with this contract?
  • Do we know if this contract is still cost-effective?
  • Can we be sure we are being billed at the correct rate?
  • How many resources have been consumed?
  • Have the services we’re paying for actually been performed?

Of course, all of these are legitimate questions, and more and more companies are finding that it pays to track down the answers. In fact, I have found that more than 30 percent of mycustomer base is losing valuable resources because of ineffective IT outsourcing contract management.

Granted, traditional contract pricing typically includes a fixed fee for a contracted volume of services, with variation on fees for volumes above or below those target thresholds. (Additional resources required are known as “ARC’s.” Credits for reductions in services provided or resources consumed are called “RRC’s.”)

This ARC/RRC methodology was designed to account for service/resource fluctuations, but when customers lack visibility into the processes that determine ARC’s and RRC’s, they lose opportunities to identify how best to utilise the services the vendor provides.

What’s more, as IT outsourcing contracts continue to grow increasingly complex, this level of uncertainty is becoming much more than a mere annoyance. It’s costly, and a lack of definition and understanding can lead to even bigger headaches down the road.

What are vendors doing to remedy these problems? Not much, apparently. And that means many customers are left feeling as though their IT outsourcers are leaving them in the dark.

For example, I have seen several cases where the original cost model based on the outsourcer invoice data did not include details on the operational environment. As a result, one of our customers who had outsourced a considerable amount of services was unable to conduct a detailed analysis on how the environment was being used and where to look for cost saving and optimisation opportunities.

In addition, some vendors are notorious for sending customer’s billing data in two separate reports: one from finance, which accounts for base contract service levels and ARC/RRC adjustments; the other from project managers, outlining server utilisation and other operational metrics.

This siloed reporting structure leaves customers hamstrung and creates ambiguity that inevitably ends up favoring the vendor. Why? Because without meaningful integration of the data from these two reports, they don’t have a simple way to connect the dots and make meaningful business decisions.

Is there anything your company can do to reverse this trend? What steps can you take to more effectively manage your IT outsourcing contracts? For starters, look for ways to marry technology outsourcing cost data with information about utilisation. This type of integrated analysis can help you:

  • Optimise hardware utilisation: Precise information about the server environment, including utilisation metrics and detail on how servers are provisioned, provides a better understanding of the resources consumed and the cost to consume them. Armed with these insights, you’ll improve your view of what resources should be optimised – and which ones can be deferred
  • Understand the TCO of your IT service portfolio: Determine total cost, cost drivers and business consumption of your IT service provider. Retained costs and other internal costs that fall outside the vendor contract should also be part of this analysis.
  • Shift IT spend to “Change the Business” initiatives: Identify trends that can lead to further innovation, cost savings, process efficiencies, and competitive advantage.
  • Renegotiate existing contracts: Contracts often contain clauses that allow you to renegotiate if your requirements have changed and specific services aren’t being utilised.
  • Uncover immediate cost savings: Analysis of integrated metrics can identify “quick wins”, such as moving provisioned services to a lower tier of service (gold to bronze, e.g.)

Remember: When your business depends on IT outsourcing, it’s imperative that you understand how to derive optimal value from your vendor contract. Once you start combining IT operational and financial data, you’ll gain actionable insights that will help improve your decision-making and lead to efficient, cost-effective management of both the IT services and resources your vendor provides.

In short, it’s time to put an end to all the uncertainties in your outsourcing contracts. Take a collaborative approach to start finding the answers you need, because I guarantee that once you do, you’ll discover that when it comes to managing IT outsourcing vendors, knowledge is power.

source:

http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/it-outsourcing-what-you-dont-know-might-be-costing-you/

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Mitigating risk in outsourcing

Most organisations conduct some level of risk assessment, prior to executing an outsourcing transaction. We have observed no common best practice on how the outsourcing risk assessment is conducted, what criteria are used to determine risk exposure or how to sort/implement the risk mitigation strategies. The following article summarises one approach, delivering high value in determining what risks apply to an outsourcing arrangement and where an organisation should focus their efforts to reduce risk.

Here is a simplified approach to outsourcing risk management:

  1. Identify the list of all risks that apply to this outsourcing strategy/initiative
  2. Identify factors that contribute to the risk occurring, due to the outsourcing strategy execution
  3. Score each potential risk based on: a) probability of the risk occurring; b) risk impact if the risk occurs
  4. Create a risk scoring matrix, ranking the risks by "high", "medium" and "low"
  5. Develop risk mitigation strategies
  6. Focus on the "high" risks, implementing risk mitigation strategies: risks can be mitigated by implementing control strategies that minimise the probability and the potential impact; detailed mitigation strategies for every single risk may not add business value and can be quite costly; risk mitigation costs should be built into the business case and tracked during the strategy execution.

Potential outsourcing risks for consideration in the assessment typically include: Project Resourcing, Requirement Definition, Procurement, Transition, Governance, Service Management, Service Tower-specific, Legal, HR, Labour Relations, Tax and IT (Capacity, Architecture, Capacity, Security, etc.) risks.  When transactions consider offshoring as part of the delivery model (as most do today), other risks need to be considered including: Economic (currency exchange and inflation), Cultural, Political, Environmental etc risks.

Source: http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk/articles/item/4386-mitigating-risk-in-outsourcing

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How Would a Project Manager affect Software Project

14 Jan, 2010
Written & Translated by Effie Sha
Beijing RayooTech Co., Ltd.

What kinds of role does a project manager play in software project management?

For technical background project manager, most of them are perfectionist, even though they know it’s very hard to reach. Usually, this will cause project postponement, client complaints, products are delayed to goes live, and development team is exhausted. For management background project manager, most of them pay more attention on the progress of project development but they cannot control the hidden risks, such as the mature technology, programmers and technical assignment, etc. It is difficult to control the project when it is delayed and the serious result will be project failure. The above two situations also will happen to someone who know both technology and management.

Than here is the question: How to be a good project manager?

Be Avoid issues

1; Be avoid to manage numerous things to mess up your project
There are frequent requirement changing, team members exchanging in both big and small projects. Too many requirements changing will lead to project out of control even project team work overtime. Finally, you will find there is nothing in perfect and you have to face clients’ complaints, boss will be hot and bothered, team members will be tired.

Definitely, requirement changing and modification by clients or technology issues by programmers are very common during the project progress. So a good project manager should understand these requirements deeply and figure out the right solution in short time. Be aware which requirement can be placed in the first phase and which one can be pushed to the second phase. Don’t’ forget you have the deadline on project contract. The key point is how to complete the project perfectly before deadline.

2; Be avoid too many personalized or perfect requirement
There must be large number of document if your client is a big company, and every conference will be official, all the staff, manager who related with project and even high level leader will attend the conference to discuss their personalized requirement. And now, the most important thing is how to keep your mind clear without contradict their opinions. There is no doubt that your clients are professionals in their area, but you are professional in software project development. Let them know that which personalized requirement can be achieved and which one cannot or will cause serious problems. Always be remembered, do not make any promise quickly, tell them ‘We’ll determine after discussion’.

Suggestions

1; Good working environment
Good communication between team members is very important, no matter it is requirement discussion or technology problems or testing, very one should help each other in order to make sure the project will be met client’s requirement and completed on time. Don’t forget your team is not isolated, you would find documents and reference from your company.

2; Control the project progress strictly
How to control the progress of software project is the most of things that all project managers and companies concerned about. If there is something wrong with the progress, than lots of unexpected things that make you burnt. Therefore, the necessary meetings have to hold, review and organize project work every week to sum up the carried work and the following tasks. In most cases, the discussion of requirements analysis is bottomless pit. Some of them are difficult to achieve, so as a good project manager, you have to keep your mind clear and pay more attention to control the direction of the topic and encourage your team members to express their views. There is an example of failed project: a company got a large scale project more than 1 million. This project has not been completed overdue for half year, company sent all available programmers to participate the project and everyone was exhausted. What was going on? Modules could be written in two months but they had been changed for four or five times, and finally, the requirement had been changed back to the original one. They realized that sometimes some ideas and decisions were just temporary ones.


3; Pay attention to all aspects of project acceptance
The project acceptance review is a formal review between the project team and a client representative. Client verifies the product and supporting documentation delivered by the project meets the requirements and objectives as set out in the software development plan. To focus the project processes on what it will take to get acceptance from your client. The project will never be completed satisfactorily on schedule and within budget without a clear understanding of the acceptance. So make sure the project management plan defined the acceptance process and criteria for each deliverable. To define ahead of time the high, medium and low level issues that the client is willing to go into production with. It can be very hard to let the client to agree that the system is acceptable for production if the criteria are not in place ahead of time. Also please prepare an analysis to determine how many problems are serious, minor, cosmetic, not legitimate, duplicates or caused by test data.

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Declaration: This article was excerpted from other resources and we do not take any author’s point of view.

[ All rights reserved, reprint, please specify source and the author. Thank you. ]

Reference:

http://pm.csai.cn/manager/201001041419091568.htm

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/managing-project-acceptance-32360

http://rup.hops-fp6.org/process/activity/ac_pacrv.htm

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