Sourcing & Staffing

Research shows that flexible workplaces result in improved productivity, increased revenue, lower staff attrition and higher staff morale. Numerous surveys indicate that the majority of employers and business managers support flexible workplace arrangements. But is this widespread recognition translated into actively marketing and promoting flexible workplace arrangements to prospective employees? The answer appears to be a resounding NO.

Deals have increased this month, but more importantly, the deals are more interesting! Increased outsourcing in areas that support consumer-orientated functions (as opposed to just infrastructure or business support deals) is especially clear this month.

Deals were light but other news was especially interesting this month. The standout issue seems to be the IT skills shortage (again!), but the discussions about the shortage seem to be expanding into areas such as hiring practices, potential resolutions etc, indicating people are considering the issue carefully, with commentary going down a few levels. There also seemed to be a high level of CIO and CTO appointments this month. The most interesting topic was the Huawei exclusion from NBN bids – lots of debate (and allegations) on that one, everyone seemed to have an opinion!

This month we have seen a lot of commentary on the e-Health records initiative, with industry bodies (medical, privacy and software) becoming quite vocal about expected launch date delays and inability to reach technical objectives, while government bodies responsible for the system refute the claims! More significant this month is the rise in outsourcing contracts and proposed tenders and even better, more interesting contracts – finally!

There have been no IT deals of great interest this month which is to be expected so early in the calendar year. As with any major government IT program, now that the launch of the federal government’s e-health record system is being ramped up, reports and debates on the system including any setbacks and flaws have increased this month and will probably keep doing so until July. Forecasts are levelling off, but there are interesting comments on predictions for the outsourcing landscape by the IAOP and Outsourcing Centre and it will be of further interest to follow developments over the next twelve months.

Deals during the month have been comparatively unexciting, with a real focus on analysis of major issues in 2011 and forecasts for 2012. What is a little disturbing and confusing about this month’s news items were the Federal Government announcements about areas for planned IT spending cuts, and increases. It is shaving costs on some essential IT (such as equipment upgrade and maintenance) and cutting vendor panels and new projects while it continues to invest huge amounts into spending on IT for students. While this appears to be a good idea in theory the value of diverting this spending may be questionable. The perceived need to get technology into student’s hands, within what is a tight timeframe, could be mostly for government PR. However this rush could lead to an inability to negotiate the best deals in terms of price and reduced leverage to procure quality items.

I was taken by surprise when the caller, whom I had never met, asked whether I was interested in being considered for an IT management position in a large (unnamed) organisation. Intuition told me to be circumspect and keep asking questions about the role while I gathered my thoughts. The caller had no problem in defining the role but would not be drawn on the organisation’s name or ...

While the number of outsourcing transactions has reduced in Q3 this year, the deals this month are more interesting than usual. News largely focused on project rollouts of previous sourcing deals and there seems to be a lot more tender and project announcements.

Gainshare models have started to emerge as a way of evolving IT and BPO outsourcing and increasing measureable financial benefits of outsourcing. Gainshare is immature and not without challenges, but can be a proof point of a mature outsourcing philosophy by an organisation.

In the current economic climate with potential scaling back of discretionary investment in IT, and data suggesting a decline in the number of IT skilled staff entering the workforce, CIOs have to weigh up many factors before deciding whether to hire permanent IT staff or engage contractors.