The Cloud, a love story! Origin and family secrets of outsourcing

This book offers a new and exciting vision of IT outsourcing based on real examples, and taken from the professional experience of the author. It provides valuable information for professionals. In particular, the book analyses the lessons of each case presented in the perspective of the eSCM methodology. IT Outsourcing no longer concerns only large companies – small and medium sized firms and, increasingly, the public sector now outsource readily. Outsourcing has been generally marketed as a cost reduction process focusing on technology improvements. This approach tends to reduce the advantages to a simple substitution of resources and systems. Mature companies now realise that outsourcing has much more to offer than such marginal gains – particularly as many projects have been branded as failures when targeted savings are not achieved. If one takes a broader view over organisational, technological and business performance, IT outsourcing provides powerful leverage for value creation. Based on a range of case studies involving US and European clients, highlighting their achievements and also their mistakes, this book shows the importance of aligning (out)sourcing strategy with the global business strategy of the company. Numerous best-practice examples are developed.Benoit Tiers, President of E.O.A. France (European Outsourcing Association) comments :Cloud: everyone has heard of it... but beyond the buzz, what dimensions does it open up? What are the impacts?This book, treating the subject from a sourcing and more specifically outsourcing point of view, sheds new light on three major, and linked, trends faced by most companies: the urgent need to be ever more maneuverable, to maximize technological revolutions, and to adapt to an advancing consumerization.Information Systems enable companies to continually adapt to changes in the ecosystem, and have become a major driver for transformation - particularly through efficient sourcing.The author reaffirms the fundamentals we know well, and stresses the need for companies to consider these developments as part of their strategy. It is now possible to conjugate industrialization and agility and continue to improve cost variability.The fact that the Cloud is today a «normal» evolution yet a necessary factor to increase company maneuverability, is confirmed in this book. Without forgetting that in order to extract its full potential, it must be governed with appropriate attention.