Srinivasan Sundara Rajan
Second Generation Outsourcing
Outsourcing is more and more viewed by the enterprises as a transformational activity, where by
- Enterprises Utilizes Out Sourcing to enhance or refine the business capability
- The Vendor/Supplier of out sourcing is viewed as a partner in transformation
- It is more about inter dependence than dependence with a single vendor
Cloud SourcingCloudsourcing refers to sourcing complete solutions to run your business from the public cloud. The solution provider that offers Cloudsourcing products or services is called "Cloudsourcer". The Cloudsourcer typically provides solutions that knits together cloud applications, cloud platforms and cloud infrastructure.
Cloud Sourcing Bettering Out Sourcing
The below table gives a list of areas where the cloud sourcing significantly out weights benefits of second generation out sourcing, which the enterprises can consider for their future business goals.
| Category | Second Generation Out Sourcing | Cloud Sourcing | Comments |
| Upgrades , Patches and maintenance of existing software stack | POOR | GOOD | In traditional out sourcing, data centers exist inside premise and take significant time in upgrading larger work like database upgrades or operating system upgrades. These even disrupt the business capability needs |
| Quick Procurement of Services | FAIR | GOOD | The multi vendor model of the second generation out sourcing also brought in challenges for consistent discovery, request and provisioning of services, however the basic Cloud tenant enables a catalogue of services. |
| Retention of Key Subject Matter Expertise | FAIR | GOOD | Most out sourcing models retain the key IT staff with the Subject Matter expertise, however as the work is shifted to the vendor data centers this retention of key employees has been affected, Cloud sourcing ensures that the key staff is available for the interface with cloud provider. |
| Vendor Lock In Avoidance | FAIR | GOOD | Most of the projects are built using the Vendor proprietary features and hence the out sourcing model had to continue with vendor lock in, SaaS cloud sourcing makes the vendor product mapping irrelevant and gives flexibility to the enterprise |
| Legal and Data Proximity Compliance | GOOD | POOR | In out sourcing model the organization has complete control of data and cloud sourcing at this time is dependent on cloud provider's data centers. |
| Legacy Modernization, Consolidation of Redundant applications | POOR | FAIR | In the out sourcing model, merging existing systems or de-commission redundant systems is possible but it is mostly a manual and time consuming process, resulting in them getting postponed many a times. However Cloud Sourcing makes the physical blue print of the application transparent and hence redundant applications automatically cost less to the organization as their usage is likely to be less. |
| Federal, state and international legal compliance | FAIR | GOOD | In the out sourcing model, compliance projects are generally a urgent patch work to get it done before the dead line expires, In the SaaS model the product Vendors ensures compliance. |
| Thought Leadership in the Domain | FAIR | GOOD | Out sourcing model while supports the thought leadership from the Supplier, but it is limited to current business process flow of the out sourcing enterprise. However in Cloud Sourcing the multi tenant design ensures that best of thought leadership from various players in the particular domain is provided through a SaaS platform. |
| Minor Enhancements, ability to do quick fixes of the applications | GOOD | POOR | In the out sourcing model the contracts can be done in such a way to do a fixed capacity of work for minor enhancements, SaaS software is generally static over a period of time and depends on upgrades from the cloud provider |
As per the over all analysis, Cloud Sourcing provides more benefits that traditional second generation that is in place and is worth considering for the enterprises.
via http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/1611752
