Educause 2008: Out/Insourcing point/counterpoint

Educause 2008: In and Outsourcing, Benefits and Risks
Len Gonick and David Trevvett

Outsourcing -- many things -- cloud computing, hosted applications
-- 30 yrs ago most of us writing own business apps
-- 90s packaged apps took over marketplace
--in effect, we have outsourced our business applications
--leasing = outsourcing ownership
-- open src (sakai) or shared dev is a form of outsourcing

G: growing expectations internal and external, hi ed slow to respond
--textbook conversation about core and context
--everything not core a prospect for outsrcing

T: prime ex of insourcing -- old legacy business systems
--Leadership scared of consulting costs; they decided to build an in house consulting group who would assist (I guess with ERP migration)

Both of them seem to be talking about either creating an internal group or developing an equity option in external firm that they helped to develop

G: Network not still core, trending towards commodity
--work with a non-profit to turn a commodity into something of strategic value
--mentions Campus EAI

{In general, I like this new point-counterpoint format -- less boring}

T: currently, pushed by executive to outsource an application but there was a lot of work mapping internal business processes to external application
-- standard, clearly defined business rules a must to take advantage of outsourcing potential
--security and privacy a big deal
-- can have greater agility in house
-- outsourcing doesn't mean you don't have to manage the application at the ext vendor

G: 800 lb gorilla -- time to have serious conversation about impact of global economic meltdown on our industry (DOW below 9,000....and sharp drop at end of day)
--advocating for a community focused attempt to answer some questions (shared service development) where there isn't an obvious industry advantage
--we will be getting mandates from BoT and legislators -- need to be prepared

T: agree with idea of regional, community based things and a mixed portfolio
--need larger economies of scale that we can never have internal to our own institutions

Question: describe a mixed portfolio

G: outsources to IBM intrusion detection, satisfies a regulatory requirement, a lot of $$ to build up expertise in house

Q: Have you come across best practices for considering in/out-sourcing?

T: move to out -- cost, dev of inhouse expertise, faster turn around, depth of offering (7/24/365)
in -- risk, security, u
--institution's culture and drivers are key

G: best template comes from an outsourced 3rd party provider (something like a Gartner) -- also provides cover for CIO
--hardware play v. SAS play -- CIO's see these as different pots of money (capital v. operational)

T: we haven't outsourced email for students but we allow them to forward their mail

G: that's why we did outsource, to develop a framework for the reln btw univ and corp -- a risk mgmt strategy

T: do you know where your data is stored? what country it's stored in?