The risks and costs of shadow IT have been always been a concern for IT organizations. Yet the business clearly values the capability to procure certain IT services to rapidly meet its changing business needs — so much so that these informal IT capabilities are springing up even more often than IT leaders realize. One 2015 report by Cisco indicated that the number of unauthorized cloud applications being used in the enterprise, for example, was 15 to 10 times higher than CIOs estimated.[ Related: CIOs vastly underestimate extent of shadow IT ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Everest Group’s 2015 outsourcing year in review report included a quick peek at some important trends taking place in five global outsourcing geographies around the globe including India, China, the United States, Latin America, and Ukraine. CIO.com talked to Aditya Verma, practice director in Everest Group’s global sourcing practice in detail about the opportunities and risks that are arising in these areas.[ Related: 10 Outsourcing Trends to Watch in 2015 ]1. United States: Inflows of military-trained talentTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Any time a company shares data or provides access to third-parties, it increases its vulnerability to unauthorized access or breach. So in today’s IT environment in which enterprises partner with multiple IT service providers, who in turn may have multiple subcontracters, cyber risks increase exponentially.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Any time a company shares data or provides access to third-parties, it increases its vulnerability to unauthorized access or breach. So in today’s IT environment in which enterprises partner with multiple IT service providers, who in turn may have multiple subcontracters, cyber risks increase exponentially.[ Related: Why CIOs can’t wait to renegotiate their outsourcing contracts ]“Customer data and systems are only as secure as the weakest link in the vendor ecosystem,” says Paul Roy, a partner in the business and technology sourcing practice of Mayer Brown. “The risks for customers are twofold: not only does the customer increase its risk of a data breach, it also increases the risk that it will be in breach of its regulatory or contractual obligations if its vendors fail to comply with such obligations.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
This year, we saw companies embrace increased standardization and cloud computing options of all flavors, use their leverage to renegotiate or rebid their deals, and settle into a best-of-breed approach to offshore outsourcing.So what will 2016 bring? Our experts expect a number of shifts in the industry—including a focus on hyper-speed deal making, the emergence of new multi-sourcing headaches and potential cures, increased man-machine collaboration, and significant expansion of the service provider universe.1. Security takes center stageSecurity is top of mind from the boardroom to the break room, and it will influence outsourcing strategy in 2016. Indeed, security risk is poised to increase as telematics and the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more prevalent in consumer and commercial products, says Paul Roy, partner in the business and technology sourcing practice of Mayer Brown. “Increasing numbers of threat actors will use increasingly creative ways to exploit weaknesses, often with devastating effect. Regulators will exact increasingly large fines for poor security. Service providers have often been the weakest link in a company’s security and will need to find better ways to address that concern.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Shortly after Branndon Kelley joined American Municipal Power (AMP) as CIO, the company's financial system went down.It took four days to restore the system and Kelley, who had previously consulted with state governments on business continuity issues, immediately started exploring AMP's backup and recovery strategy.He quickly discovered that there was none. No coherent plan. "We had a whole bag of tricks," Kelley says, including more than 10 different backup systems and processes. There were outdated off-the-shelf packages and hand-coded scripts--none of them documented or interconnected. There were backups of backups, and fewer than half of the backups succeeded on the first try.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT outsourcing customers are increasingly looking for their service providers not just to cut technology costs or improve process efficiency, but to deliver business results. But getting that kind of business value from IT suppliers has proven to be a challenge.The secret getting technology providers on board with delivering innovation may actually be the terms of the IT outsourcing deals. “Most IT services buyers seek compliance, not improved supplier performance” from their contracts, says Brad Peterson, partner in the Chicago office of law firm Mayer Brown. “That’s all that’s necessary for most it services categories. However, IT buyers can create substantially more value by using incentives to deliver innovation, analytics, data security, mobility, cloud and other fast-changing it services categories.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Stephanie Overby