Although my coverage of this resource is a bit dated, the material certainly isn’t. A couple of months ago, Tim Murtha shared some advice from his experiences as a transformation leader for Sunoco. Murtha had taken his large company from one where 90% of its IT infrastructure services were being delivered in-house to one where 90% was outsourced.
Murtha, with the help of IT and BPO service provider Infocrossing, produced a "workbook" that reads somewhat like an outsourcing-for-beginners guide. And I think that’s just what some members of the audience for this particular workbook need. It’s intended for IT managers who really haven’t given much credence to the value of outsourcing. Murtha takes that person in hand (figuratively speaking) and walks him or her through the basic steps that need to be traversed to develop an outsourcing strategy.
At each step he has the reader list out various aspects of his or her operation — that’s what makes this a "workbook" rather than just another white paper.
For example, the author advises that you "create one common, overarching work-tracking system — a way of capturing all work requests, which translates to input about the work you do." But first, he has the reader list each one — whether formal (a help desk system) or informal (verbal requests). In this way, he gets the reader to take a broader view of the infrastructure.
Along the way, he shares some of the details about Sunoco — pre-transformation.
Page 15 offers a handy chart you can use to estimate total cost for desktops, mobile services, client services and client software. Apparently, it’s similar to what Sunoco used too, to get a more accurate view of the "total cost of maintenance" for aspects of its IT budget.
You can download a copy of the workbook here.
