WARNING: Hands off my strategy say European IT Directors

An overwhelming 100% of IT directors in manufacturing want to keep IT strategy management in-house, according to new research. 36% say that strategy is the most enjoyable part of their job and 19% firmly believe that outsourcing their intellectual property is bad for the business. Furthermore, not one IT director in the manufacturing industry believes that wholesale outsourcing is the most effective way to save costs and improve performance.

However, the majority (55%) of the 100 IT directors from the manufacturing sector who took part in Synstars annual pan-European research do believe that outsourcing other selected responsibilities would save costs whilst improving performance.

Respondents cited user support, business continuity, networking, data management, infrastructure support and maintenance as areas where outsourcing can deliver benefits such as cost control (11%) and guaranteed service levels (27%). For 30%, the principal benefits of outsourcing selected tasks to a managed services provider, is access to a wider pool of skills and in to free up internal resources (30%).

Russell Flower, director of managed IT services and business availability supplier Synstar, comments:

Outsourcing selected functions to a third party managed services provider can improve performance and cut costs but, unlike wholesale outsourcing, it does not take strategy and control away from the business. IT directors can off-load the constant pressures of operational tasks like data management and network monitoring, and concentrate on strategy - safe in the knowledge that IT is available and backed-up 24/7/365.

My only word of warning would be to choose IT partners carefully. Its absolutely crucial to choose a company with the expertise and capability to deliver.