Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations SkipVought on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Outsourcing Pros and Cons
- Thread starter Latvia1
- Start date
Hi,
because of the fact that you receive an invoice periodically when the business process is outsourced, the costs related to this process are more transparant, which gives the management more steering possibilities.
Normally reports are generated on department or user basis, call charges included. If these costs are charged on these persons, telecom costs often decrease in time.
When your process is outsourced there are no personnel costs and concerns anymore, which often relieves management.
Regards,
Willem_3
because of the fact that you receive an invoice periodically when the business process is outsourced, the costs related to this process are more transparant, which gives the management more steering possibilities.
Normally reports are generated on department or user basis, call charges included. If these costs are charged on these persons, telecom costs often decrease in time.
When your process is outsourced there are no personnel costs and concerns anymore, which often relieves management.
Regards,
Willem_3
That is a hard question to answer. I would say that it all depends on how busy the telecom is. You should keep track of your day to day work adds, move, changes or what ever the case my be. To out source the company looses the flexibility of on the spot programming and repairs they will loose that type of customer support that you can provide for them. Out sourcing mighty save the company money in some cases but it is all about the customer service. I know when I had to use an out source the company the company I used had a policy of a 2-4 hour charge minimum even if they were at one of my sites for 30 minute I would still be charged the minimum hours. Do you think that the managers/directors are going to go in and change a name or rest a voice mail just because the user forgot their pass code to there mailbox. How about moving a phone because the users don’t like where they sit the user wants to be closer to the window. Do you really think a manager / Director is really going to think that these simple changes that mean so much to a user is that important to call a contractor in and pay high dollar for their services. No it’s not! Yes their may be some that will do this type of work But I do not know many that even have the time to deal with it. Manager/Directors are busy doing other more important tasks for the company.
Another point is security. Does your company let any one in the server rooms with out a full time employee their to watch them. I can tell you that with having thousands/millions of dollars of equipment in a room and having hundreds/thousands of employees depending on the equipment to work I would not trust any contractor to be in my switch rooms alone no matter who or how responsible they say they are. I have had contractor’s power down switches and routers dropping the entire company to a stand still because they needed an out let or they failed to look at what they were doing and how would their tasks effect other working equipment. I am not saying that contractors are bad and not trust worthy but when it is my responsibility to maintain such a network I keep a low amount of employees that have access to such a room. Now not only will the company be paying for the contractor’s time but now for an employee to baby sit contractors and not get their work done. Like I said if your company is big enough and you can provide them a full 40 hours of work it would be better to keep a full time telecom tech on the salaries then it would to be at the mercy of contractors.
Once again I am not trying to slam contractors, managers nor directors. I have been a contractor for many years and also a manager. I hold a high respect to all. These comments are based off of my experience as being both and contractor /manager.
Good luck Latvia1. I hope your company makes the right a choice.
Another point is security. Does your company let any one in the server rooms with out a full time employee their to watch them. I can tell you that with having thousands/millions of dollars of equipment in a room and having hundreds/thousands of employees depending on the equipment to work I would not trust any contractor to be in my switch rooms alone no matter who or how responsible they say they are. I have had contractor’s power down switches and routers dropping the entire company to a stand still because they needed an out let or they failed to look at what they were doing and how would their tasks effect other working equipment. I am not saying that contractors are bad and not trust worthy but when it is my responsibility to maintain such a network I keep a low amount of employees that have access to such a room. Now not only will the company be paying for the contractor’s time but now for an employee to baby sit contractors and not get their work done. Like I said if your company is big enough and you can provide them a full 40 hours of work it would be better to keep a full time telecom tech on the salaries then it would to be at the mercy of contractors.
Once again I am not trying to slam contractors, managers nor directors. I have been a contractor for many years and also a manager. I hold a high respect to all. These comments are based off of my experience as being both and contractor /manager.
Good luck Latvia1. I hope your company makes the right a choice.
Just as a note, the state of Alaska outsourced their entire telecommunications program last year.
And just last month the state cancelled the contract for lack of performance. The performance issues were surrounding the implementation of the VOIP upgrade.
My friends that transffered from the State telecommunication employment to the contractor received upwards of $6 and hour pay raises and their state time converted to union time. It will interesting to see how many of those employess move back to the State.
Tim
And just last month the state cancelled the contract for lack of performance. The performance issues were surrounding the implementation of the VOIP upgrade.
My friends that transffered from the State telecommunication employment to the contractor received upwards of $6 and hour pay raises and their state time converted to union time. It will interesting to see how many of those employess move back to the State.
Tim
eras3r
IS-IT--Management
- Oct 2, 2003
- 4
- 0
- 0
IMHO ssinger is so very right in everything he says... and i would only like to say about that situation when things must be done/repaired very very quick (because time is money) and the contractor's priorities are different than yours. I don't know how are the things in your countries but it happened to me. As i write this i'm waiting for their arrival and, what can i say... wish me luck 
)
eras3r
)eras3r
SSinger1 has some good observations. I think this is where the famous quote is most applicable:
"The difference between a smart mand and a wise man: A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from other's". So allow me to provide you with the chance to become a wise man........
I was facing the same question after we purchased our system from a distant vendor. Like normal, the management sat on the contracts; lost the contracts and pretended that they never received them. My vendor didn't go a good job during the initial installation so, I didn't push the management to sign nor did I submit replacement contracts for them to sign.
What I've seen suggests that most contracts are comprised of three parts:
The first being the monthly PM stuff like checking the UPS, checking on the backup routines, checking on the T1 circuits, etc. Often times, it includes software upgrades and phone instrument repair services. In my opinion, the need for this service is fully dependent on your confidence in the contractor providing the service. If they're fly-by-night, there's a high probability that they'll bill you every month but forget to do the work. Get a repetuable company and it is all worth the cost. In my case, I think I might have made a mistake. Nortel is suppose to build good stuff. In my opinion, I think the 3903 phones aren't as robust as they should be and I think I'm suffering too many failures which costs me. Out of the box we had 25% failures. Since then I'm getting about a 10% per year failure rate. With a contract, I could have pushed the problems to the vendor and Nortel. Since we didn't sign, we're paying for the repairs.
Second part of the contract is the off-site management. This is where they install a device to monitor your system and call you when something goes wrong. They're supposed to made all the arrangements for repair with the LEC and/or send someone to repair your PBX. Note however that they then bill you for sending a tech to your site. After installation, my vendor was suppose to provide 1 year of monitoring. This is one of the places where my vendor didn't perform to my expectations. A few times, I had to call them and tell them that my phone system was down.
And last part of the contract, is the MAC (move, adds, changes). My vendor is 75 miles away. In my case, this is a hard sell given the minimum charge rates and the fact that I pay for windsheild time. A while back, I paid for some MAC time and in the end I was disappointed. They billed me for 100% but only performed about 80% of the work and I had to do the rest. I think this is why I didn't push the contract with my management.
I'm not saying that I know any more than the contractor or doing any better but then again, the phones keep ringing and it's given me a chance to learn. You could look at it another way...I'm salary, my time is all ready paid for whereas the contractor gets paid out of your O&M budget.
Long story short....It's all dependent on how confident you are with your skills, the skills of you contractor and how much money you've got in your budget.
mike
"The difference between a smart mand and a wise man: A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from other's". So allow me to provide you with the chance to become a wise man........
I was facing the same question after we purchased our system from a distant vendor. Like normal, the management sat on the contracts; lost the contracts and pretended that they never received them. My vendor didn't go a good job during the initial installation so, I didn't push the management to sign nor did I submit replacement contracts for them to sign.
What I've seen suggests that most contracts are comprised of three parts:
The first being the monthly PM stuff like checking the UPS, checking on the backup routines, checking on the T1 circuits, etc. Often times, it includes software upgrades and phone instrument repair services. In my opinion, the need for this service is fully dependent on your confidence in the contractor providing the service. If they're fly-by-night, there's a high probability that they'll bill you every month but forget to do the work. Get a repetuable company and it is all worth the cost. In my case, I think I might have made a mistake. Nortel is suppose to build good stuff. In my opinion, I think the 3903 phones aren't as robust as they should be and I think I'm suffering too many failures which costs me. Out of the box we had 25% failures. Since then I'm getting about a 10% per year failure rate. With a contract, I could have pushed the problems to the vendor and Nortel. Since we didn't sign, we're paying for the repairs.
Second part of the contract is the off-site management. This is where they install a device to monitor your system and call you when something goes wrong. They're supposed to made all the arrangements for repair with the LEC and/or send someone to repair your PBX. Note however that they then bill you for sending a tech to your site. After installation, my vendor was suppose to provide 1 year of monitoring. This is one of the places where my vendor didn't perform to my expectations. A few times, I had to call them and tell them that my phone system was down.
And last part of the contract, is the MAC (move, adds, changes). My vendor is 75 miles away. In my case, this is a hard sell given the minimum charge rates and the fact that I pay for windsheild time. A while back, I paid for some MAC time and in the end I was disappointed. They billed me for 100% but only performed about 80% of the work and I had to do the rest. I think this is why I didn't push the contract with my management.
I'm not saying that I know any more than the contractor or doing any better but then again, the phones keep ringing and it's given me a chance to learn. You could look at it another way...I'm salary, my time is all ready paid for whereas the contractor gets paid out of your O&M budget.
Long story short....It's all dependent on how confident you are with your skills, the skills of you contractor and how much money you've got in your budget.
mike
- Thread starter
- #7
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question