Forward thinking from the backseat

As the age of pragmatic IT thinking advances, quick, ROI-focused solutions are finding their way into the driver’s seat with you again. But this time around, you probably didn’t notice that Mr. Big Outsourcing Company has also climbed aboard to offer some advice from the backseat.

Mr. Big Outsourcing Company (let’s create a new acronym and call him Mr. BOC) represents what we have previously thought of as a traditional IT services outfit — IBM Global Services, Hewlett-Packard Services, Sun, Siemens, and Fujitsu. These are technology-services companies

building massive datacenters under the guise of discovering the next generation of distributed computing. But in most cases they’re set to become serious outsourcing businesses, and for good reason. IDC predicts worldwide outsourcing services spending will reach $151 billion this year.

The outsourcer’s mission is to capitalize on the business opportunity represented by IT’s 80/20 rule. In theory, 80 percent of your time and money is spent running and managing existing IT infrastructures. The remainder is supposed to be spent investigating forthcoming technologies — it’s just a pity your CFO has forgotten how to sign a check.

So as you drive down the IT highway, the 80/20 rule is great news for Mr. BOC. Companies including IBM and Hewlett-Packard can draw on a deep wellspring of product-based business experience. I’ve read about plenty of examples recently in which this pragmatic, technology-centric approach to services is more popular than the lofty advice of high-end IT consultants.

I have trouble with this scenario — handing the datacenter keys to Mr. BOC may quench your desire to kick the tires of next-generation technologies on your own. Mr. BOC could do all your thinking for you.

For example, Web services — if you let Mr. BOC direct your Web services experiments in the early stages, you’ll never gain the creative insight you need into this new technology for the future.

Already, there are signs that enterprise IT is limiting its Web services scope. One enterprise IT executive I heard from recently described Web services as “a better mousetrap for doing integration.” Another executive said that most of his clients are using Web services to save money, rather than using it to increase revenues.

Both opinions are an accurate reflection of what most enterprises use Web services for today: integration. But if reducing cost is your only objective, you’re missing the full potential. Why not take the money Web services saved you on an integration project and apply it to developing other parts of your IT infrastructure?

If you apply all this to the 80/20 rule, the long-term goal now becomes how to spend more time and money on emerging technologies, rather than the tedious, utilitylike IT services you handed off to an outsourcer.

Just remember that Mr. BOC probably wants a slice of that money, too, so keep your hands on the wheel. Now’s not the time to rely on outsourcers for all your tire-kicking needs.

Send us your feedback: Will outsourcers dominate your IT budget in the future?