TechNews feedDatacenters: an endangered species?
2007/July/25 Filed in: Technology | IT
The future of IT: specialization via dedicated IT companies, regional/global IT providers/outsourcers.
Even before I joined my current company, I was predicting that "normal" (ie, non IT companies) would have less and less reasons to operate their own IT departments and would outsource them to specialized IT companies. The goal here will not be not pure cost savings, as the craze of the early 2000's to send everything to India. I believe the goal is to do effciently what only a focused company can do.
In reality, companies have been doing this for decades, just not for IT. Every factory had their own trucks and drivers; nowadays everybody uses regional or global companies specialized in that. Who remembers the friendly company security guard? Nowadays, Securitas does the job for most and nobody complains: the guy is, for th emost part, the same and he stays in the same assignement long-term. The same patern is repeated many times over; we just don't notice it anymore. And the trend is spreading to other areas: HR (not just recruiting), finance, product support, learning/training, etc...
This article ("Datacenters: an endangered species?") now goes in the direction I stated, but has more modest predictions, just focusing on the rising costs and specialization of datacenters. It's a small article but an interesting read which, IMHO, describes a stepping stone to the next obvious step: spinning off (outsourcing, if you like) of IT to a specialized company. I also believe that the solution for these outsources/spin-offs will not be India/China/.
First, in the same way that was done in the past, big companies spun off their non-core divisions independently and contract with them the same services as before but allowing them to grow, get external customers and leverage economies of scale. This, for the most part, is not long lived since they inherit the big company, non streamlined mentality. Afterwards, an healthy mix of regional and global companies will eventually win out, like they did in the other fields.
What is interesting, though, is that none of these companies is doing pure remote outsourcing and they all have strong local/regional presence. In fact, over the past few years, the motto is "Think global, act local" (which some have coined as glocal) and it really works.
In the end, all this is good for technicians, which will still find employment. But, this time, in proper IT companies where they can focus on technology and its efficient delivery and operation. This is all good.
Those that will suffer with this change? Well, you know them well... the "business oriented", service delivery, ITIL knowledgeable, PMI/PRINCE2 certified, "process driven", IT manager that can't make a technical decision to save his live and is focused on avoiding risks by doing as little changes as possible. The kind of guys that implements Change Control™ and take 1 week to approve a innocuous DNS record addition because once-upon-a-time someone made a DNS mistake and now for him all DNS changes are the same (‡).
For the rest of us, geeks, I welcome the future and what it brings. Let it rip!
(‡) This actually happened in a previous position I had. :-(
In reality, companies have been doing this for decades, just not for IT. Every factory had their own trucks and drivers; nowadays everybody uses regional or global companies specialized in that. Who remembers the friendly company security guard? Nowadays, Securitas does the job for most and nobody complains: the guy is, for th emost part, the same and he stays in the same assignement long-term. The same patern is repeated many times over; we just don't notice it anymore. And the trend is spreading to other areas: HR (not just recruiting), finance, product support, learning/training, etc...
This article ("Datacenters: an endangered species?") now goes in the direction I stated, but has more modest predictions, just focusing on the rising costs and specialization of datacenters. It's a small article but an interesting read which, IMHO, describes a stepping stone to the next obvious step: spinning off (outsourcing, if you like) of IT to a specialized company. I also believe that the solution for these outsources/spin-offs will not be India/China/
First, in the same way that was done in the past, big companies spun off their non-core divisions independently and contract with them the same services as before but allowing them to grow, get external customers and leverage economies of scale. This, for the most part, is not long lived since they inherit the big company, non streamlined mentality. Afterwards, an healthy mix of regional and global companies will eventually win out, like they did in the other fields.
What is interesting, though, is that none of these companies is doing pure remote outsourcing and they all have strong local/regional presence. In fact, over the past few years, the motto is "Think global, act local" (which some have coined as glocal) and it really works.
In the end, all this is good for technicians, which will still find employment. But, this time, in proper IT companies where they can focus on technology and its efficient delivery and operation. This is all good.
Those that will suffer with this change? Well, you know them well... the "business oriented", service delivery, ITIL knowledgeable, PMI/PRINCE2 certified, "process driven", IT manager that can't make a technical decision to save his live and is focused on avoiding risks by doing as little changes as possible. The kind of guys that implements Change Control™ and take 1 week to approve a innocuous DNS record addition because once-upon-a-time someone made a DNS mistake and now for him all DNS changes are the same (‡).
For the rest of us, geeks, I welcome the future and what it brings. Let it rip!
(‡) This actually happened in a previous position I had. :-(