Business Information Management Strategy for the RBS Computer Failure

The only means for the IT companies to maintain business and to have minimal losses was to transfer their services overseas to India. Nonetheless, many of the people who had lost their IT jobs saw this as a disadvantage since they were the ones who had to either find another job that matched their skills or had to obtain new skills. Along with this, they, along with the majority of the workforce, saw outsourcing as something harmful to the American economy and that it caused increase in cost (Easterls, 166). These outlooks are not necessarily true, however.

Part 1: Search the internet for the term "IT outsourcing". Find at least two articles that discuss outsourcing, whether beneficial or controversial. Summarize the articles and answer the following questions in a two to three page paper:

Schaeffer 's corporate management has to consider the report submitted by the task force recommending to outsourcing their IT support services to ABC Corp and analyze both the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing proposal before making the final decision. One of the main advantage that most of the companies try realize by outsourcing its services is cost cutting. However in this case, the outsourcing proposal does not bring significant cost savings to the table

Part 1: Search the internet for the term "IT outsourcing". Find at least two articles that discuss outsourcing, whether beneficial or controversial. Summarize the articles and answer the following questions in a two to three page paper:

The big tech companies already invested billions of dollars in IT infrastructure, for example Amazon has invested more than $5 billion with their Amazon Web Services division, and estimates revenues of $20 billion by 2020 . Outsourcing provides the capability to shift from a fixed to variable cost IT infrastructure, and only pay for the usage without making big hardware and software investments. Ultimately, the company must decide what should be in-house and what can be outsourced.

Outsourcing can provide businesses with flexible, low cost solutions to staffing problems. However, it can also present challenges and complexities, which is why our expert practitioners advise clients seeking to pursue outsourcing arrangements. We have advised a number of companies on the outsourcing of key parts of their businesses, including the outsourcing of IT and other business functions.

A typical example would be the evolution of ERP function to improve financial reporting and transaction processing. Organizations have accepted this IT solution because it helps strengthen several business processes and provide opportunities for growth. However, implementing ERP solutions are somewhat demanding and time consuming, implementation may take several months before completion. Although outsourcing may pose as a best risk-mitigation approach to business solutions, there are also many challenges associated with outsourcing IT solutions. It is critical that before organizations make decisions on whether to outsource a section of their business, they understand the implications such as risks and benefits before going into contracts. The purpose of this paper is to describe outsourcing as it relates to IT solutions. Following the research questions, a background that discusses outsourcing is presented which addresses reasons for outsourcing IT solutions, benefits involved in outsourcing, risks involved in outsourcing IT projects and best practices of outsourcing ERP solutions. Also, a section of this paper discusses outsourcing as it relates to enterprise resource planning (ERP), this is because ERP is considered a big player in IT solutions provision, which have been adopted and implemented in their various IT infrastructure.

Outsourcing can be expensive and have multiple risks; however, in this paper I will identify the possible risks to an organization in each of the following outsourcing situations:

In 1973, a monumental shift was prevailing where U.S. companies were sending low skilled jobs within the manufacturing industry to offshore countries to reduce labor cost while maximizing profits. The effect of the jobless manufacturing work force was a shift of those laborers to focus on and perfect the service industry of what it is today (Koch 1). During the high tech recessions of the late 1990s and a nominal expansion of the present time, the Information Technology industry, an industry which through continuous innovations enabled the companies and corporations of America to become more efficient and productive, is also facing the outsourcing similarity with manufacturing. While outsourcing

Competitive advantage is defined as a condition where a company is in a favorable position in order for it to be more profitable than its competitors. This can be done by selling the same goods as its competitors at a lower price or providing goods that give a greater value, which mean a high-quality product through differentiation (Business Dictionary, 2015). Every company needs to identify its competitive advantages in order for an organisation to be able to gain profit and to continue the business for a foreseeable future. Information systems (IS) have played an important role in helping organisations to achieve their objective and goals. Kroenke and Hooper (2013) suggested that, by recognizing the competitive strategy, it can determine the structure,

Because of the rising cost of information systems functions in some firms, managers are finding ways on how to control these costs and are considering Information Technology as a capital expenditures/investments rather than as an operating cost of the firm. Controlling these costs by outsourcing are one of the options because some firms considered this option as cost effective than to maintain their own computer centre and information systems staff. Another concept of outsourcing IT systems is, to pay only for what it uses meaning the company will pay only the outsourcing partner according to the extent of computer processing that they needed rather than to build their own computer centre and not utilized or it is underutilized when there is no peak load. Some firms also outsourced because their information systems personnel can’t cope up with the rapid change of technology. But not all firms may have benefited from outsourcing, there are also disadvantages of outsourcing that a firm must carefully consider which may or can create serious problems for the company if they are not well understood, managed and taken for granted. Below are some of the most popular advantages and disadvantages of Computer Information Systems and Hardware

The challenges for outsourcing are many as there are two different companies working together. The risk of something going wrong is based on whether the communication between the two is good. Communication is the most important part of the cooperation between the two companies.

Outsourcing IT services causes organizational risks that services recipients must have pay serious attention to. About a decade ago, very few companies had any experience with the contracting process. Much experienced has been gained outsourcing non-core process such as catering, security, logistics and treasury and archive services. in fact, many companies now have experienced with IT outsourcing itself, since they have contracted out their IT services before sometimes even to several consecutive suppliers.

Outsourcing refers to hiring an outside, independent firm to perform a business function that internal employees might otherwise perform. Many organizations outsource jobs to specialized service companies, which frequently operate abroad. The outsourcing trend stands to continue; the latest wave of outsourcing impacts the information technology field. IT outsourcing includes data center operations, desktop and help desk support, software development, e-commerce outsourcing, software applications services, network operations and disaster recovery.2

Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).