IT Infrastructure: Selecting a vendor

It indeed has been a long wait – for me since the last post and for you as well to take the discussion on IT Infrastructure outsourcing forward.

In our last posts we reached a conclusion that outsourcing makes senses and we looked at areas we can outsource. So now that you are ready for IT Infrastructure outsourcing, the next question is: “Where and to whom?”

Well..think of this as the one of the top three service needs for your Business continuity and that will allow you to decide on the parameters needed for the right location and the right vendor.  Managed Infrastructure services demand a lot more than pure skills or manpower. It’s about managing and handling the basic yet most critical needs of the organizational IT.  

Continuing my focus on the needs and constraints of small and medium businesses the first aspect we’ll focus is the parameters of vendor. Outlining a few critical ones is not difficult. Lets start with the internal factors.

First and foremost is to select a reliable organization with proper alliances and extensive experience in managing IT Infrastructure for your kind of business.  Remember every other aspect of the engagement can be monitored, controlled and corrected but a mistake in selection can take you N. Korea instead of Vagas.  Make sure your RFI document asks for all the critical information regarding the foundation, the management, the stability and the clientele of the organization. Also important is to understand how deep their relationship is with major infrastructure hardware and solution providers. The stronger their alliances, the better their access to knowledge and resource pool, both very important at the time of crisis.

Next in line is the vendor’s own infrastructure like the power supply, reliability and speed of internet connections and backup planning. Very important to adjudge the vendor‘s arrangements for a 24/7 operation in case that important to the engagement or future scalability.  The principles remain the same here as in any industry, the stronger the foundation the better the result.

Trained and certified staff with adequate knowledge of your infrastructure setup and its components and the key to any outsourcing engagement. Cross check the information supplied in the RFI to ensure the vendor has in-house staff for all the key skills your engagement asks for.

Beyond these internal factors, the location of your outsourcing provider with respect to the political and socio-cultural stability of the region is the biggest external factor to stress upon. A safe choice shall be the region with:
-          strong democracy and political stability
-          local government policies towards IT as a primary contributor to the service sector
-          readily available workforce, trained and employable

Reliable internet through high speed dedicated lines and broadband connections have made the world a smaller yet virtual place to support businesses. You could choose between a local provider, near-shore provider and an offshore vendor, the above factors are taken care of.

The final factor is cost and I’m sure not much needs to be said about this. It’s always better to choose a provider who offers the optimum mix between low costs and qualifications on the above parameters. When it comes to cost, we are all smart :)

Once you choose a vendor and finalize the engagement, a critical requirement is of managing the vendor and monitoring the performance on a regular basis to ensure the success of the engagement. There are a whole lot of policies & procedures, tools & technologies that can be used to monitor vendor performance and manage the vendor effectively. But this we are going to talk some other time.

Till then remember any engagement has its own must haves, good to have and luxuries at different price points. The choice is for you to make!!