05 Aug Marius Tulea recommends: Outsourcing, IT efficiency and alignment solution to strategic goals of the organization
Given that all companies lower their costs, IT departments are not forgiven. In this context, outsourcing has become a solution for IT department efficiency without going down to the quality of IT support. Marius Tulea, general manager of CRESCENDO, talks about the benefits of outsourcing, but also about the company’s plans in this direction.
IT & C Club: At this time, everyone is talking about outsourcing as a way to streamline activity and reduce costs. What does Crescendo offer in this regard?
Marius Tulea: Outsourcing is not a novelty in our service portfolio. We have positioned ourselves in the market as a specialized integrator, the IT & C Solutions House, so besides the basic, traditional services that we offer (covering the pre-implementation, implementation and support part), it was natural to expand our services portfolio in order to leverage our clients the IT & C services administration, partial or total. We have ongoing contracts for a few years now.
The economic crisis has done nothing but to get ahead of this service, compared to the others, precisely because it is best adapted to the difficult times we are going through. Why? Because most clients are looking at big projects with some heart stiffness. There are few who are “ventures” now to let go of big projects. This is why outsourcing has become more prominent and more visible than ever before in our portfolio and more players in the market.
IT & C Club: In Romania, the outsourcing market is somewhere below 10 per cent of its potential. Why so small and whose market segments are addressed.
Marius Tulea: I think the percentage of outsourcing services in the total IT services market is somewhat proportional to the maturity level of the market. The more mature and well set the market is, the higher the percentage. It is enough to look at the occupied degree in Western countries or the US, and this difference only confirms that the domestic IT market is not yet mature. Always the next generation burns stages. In Western Europe and in the US there have been and there will be cycles. It outsources and returns to inhouse in cycles. The Central and Eastern European market was more visible from the perspective of outsourcing providers, being less open due to the maturity of the market to the consumer’s position of these services. But in the meantime, due to globalization, the emergence of more and more multinational foreign firms, this trend has emerged in our market.
We consider the crisis as an opportunity for customers to analyze the benefits and risks and make decisions, possibly based on the experience of others. Statistics show that there is an important component of outsourcing in countries with a developed IT market that would not have been maintained at such a level if the services provided were not effective in the long run. In this context, companies in Romania, and I refer here to medium-sized clients, will be determined to look at costs and take measures to ensure the expected level of service at controllable costs. Because the idea of low cost is not something to report when it comes to the same level of service.
IT & C Club: To what business segment do you address with outsourcing services and what can they receive from CRESCENDO?
Marius Tulea: From the point of view of the size of the company, the outsourcing service can be scaled in the sense that, if we talk about big companies, it should be treated and discussed as a solution in itself. Specifically, first of all the client’s status, expectations regarding the availability of services, etc. are analyzed. There is a kind of feasibility study whereby, first of all, company management decides whether or not this project is feasible. If the project passes the approval of the management, a solution is created, it is established how we put into operation and the maintenance that already exists, etc. All this is done on the basis of a very well designed project to give the client a permanent control. This would be largely the approach of a medium-sized company where we talk about a relatively complex IT and where, starting from some basic functions, we can create a customized solution. As we address the market for medium-sized businesses, things need to be brought closer to the standardized regime. At a certain number of workstations and certain system typologies, in order to get outsourced, the IT system is standardized in a certain direction.
But, from the point of view of the complexity of the operating systems to the client, I do not think there is a big difference between an end user employed in a company with 50-100 people than one employed in a company with 500-1,000 employees. If I turn away the back-office applications (ERP, CRM) that are more complex in a large organization, the e-mail part, the use of the Internet, the collaborative part remains as complex in every organization. And so you can handle such a situation, you must have prescriptions and standardization.
In conclusion, the difference between a large and a small company stands in the standardization degree. The smaller it is, the more they have to comply with some standards in the sense of taking them.
With regard to the type of service offered, the most handy and the ones that generally go to clients are those that are less critical (help desk, internal IT support). It goes to critical systems (the servers that keep core business applications) only after they accumulate the experience and after the company has convinced that the risks they assume are much lower than the benefits it has. The collaborative application area has also become critical to organizations. We talk here about e-mail, videoconferencing, etc. In this area we see a market where customers are interested in minimizing their costs through standardization.
Club IT & C: Why Outsourcing? What are the benefits of this service?
Marius Tulea: First of all, the arguments in favor of the outsourcing of the company should be discussed within the company with the top management together with the IT manager. The outsourcing option is a strategic one, which must belong to the entire management staff. This is because, by switching to outsourcing, you can better manage IT system alignment with company goals. Thus, the company can focus better on core business. Also, the IT manager in the company will focus on achieving the company’s business goals rather than achieving IT goals. Through outsourcing, IT management is freed from daily routines and can focus on strategic. Another advantage is the ability to control the costs – at the level of services set up with the supplier costs me as much as I agreed by contract. If these services are at home and a man leaves the team, it will always generate costs with the search and training of the staff. This is a challenge, an uncontrollable cost that, if I want to keep it internally, I have to assume it. If I transfer it to an outsourcing provider it’s his problem. Last but not least, another advantage of outsourcing is the flexibility that it gives me in terms of business because in an advanced order of outsourcing I can fine-tune my expenses with what imposes my market situation.
Club IT & C: How do you see the evolution of the outsourcing market in the next year and the company’s?
Marius Tulea: I do not think there will be a very rapid return; this general psychosis has been created in the sense that everyone expects to see what others are doing, in what way things move. This means that many projects in the near future will not be seen. There is hope in the public sector, but that has a certain specificity and will continue to have it. But as life goes forward, private organizations will be forced to operate based on both old systems and new systems, even if fewer but more integrated than the old ones. It is possible that the acquisition of parts of new systems will take the form of services.
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