Home : Networking : News

Outsourcing creates convergence confusion

A new survey has found IT decision makers are managing multiple outsourcing suppliers despite major overlap between the areas of responsibility brought on by convergence.

By Miya Knights, 1 Nov 2007 at 16:22

gallery

As communication technology converges on digital, internet protocol (IP) based networks, the number of outsourcing suppliers managing this infrastructure is as dispersed as ever, a new survey out this afternoon has found.

Over 60 per cent of mid-sized organisations, questioned by researcher Canvasse Opinion, were found to have more than six suppliers with over a third (36 per cent) having more than 11 suppliers to manage.

At the same time, only 30 per cent of the 100 public and private sector organisations surveyed were aware that their communications suppliers were in turn managing other third parties on their behalf.

Tom Gutteridge, head of marketing and business development for survey sponsor and IT services provider, Damovo told IT PRO that, to get the most out a converged IT communications strategy, organisations should be targeting those providers that can offer a truly 'end-to-end' service.

"Convergence has meant the voice as an application can appear on the desktop, fixed phone or mobile, for example, which means its no longer enough to manage the traditional PBXs [private branch exchanges]," he said. "There is server and network infrastructure for supporting related appliances too."

More than half (53 per cent) of those surveyed rated outsourcing to have medium to high relevance for their organisation. But 'proven expertise' (87 per cent) and 'a cost effective route to resources and services' (85 per cent) were the most important factors in ICT part or outsourcing decision making, as opposed to being able to provide a comprehensive service.

Gutteridge said the overall research findings seemed to reflect an underlying silo mentality amongst the respondents, with organisations possibly packaging their outsourcing needs to supporting technology rather than with a view to achieving an end-to-end service.

This translates to support communications and networking infrastructure that also supports desktop applications and devices, as integral components of the real-time unified voice and data communications.

The survey found that the most common areas, either for full or partial outsourcing, are network management (44 per cent) and security management (38 per cent). Desktop management was currently the least fully or partially sourced area (26 per cent), however a number of the respondents stated they would consider this in the future.