Business Process Outsourcing Assessment – IT Operations

Project Background

A leader in consumer electronics retailing was aggressively pursuing a strategy of outsourcing its non-core business functions. Their overall goal was to improve efficiency while simultaneously reducing costs. They engaged TBI to undertake an assessment to determine if outsourcing some or all of their IT infrastructure services could have significant positive impact on the company.

Problem Summary

The purpose of the assignment was to determine the scope of the IT infrastructure that could meaningfully be outsourced. If the assessment indicated that there was business value in outsourcing some or all of the in-house functions, then the intent was to develop a request for proposal, evaluate vendor responses and proceed to contract. The development of a financial baseline for the scope of the RFP was critical so that our client could evaluate the economic value of the proposals against their pre-determined hurdle rates. The range of our client’s IT infrastructure services that were within the scope of this assessment included data center operations, user help desk, desktop services, networks (voice and data), and business application support.

TBI’s Approach

Key managers from the IT infrastructure services organization were interviewed and relevant documentation was reviewed. TBI structured the results of the assessment in a model of how an outsourcing provider would view our clients operations. This involved the definition of ‘technology towers’. Staffing, budgets and outsourcing issues were developed by tower. Detailed in-scope and out of scope decisions were made using this structure. TBI also reviewed existing third party agreements to determine if they were assignable and evaluated other outsourcing risks such as the potential loss of intellectual capital. The final recommendations were based upon TBI’s outsourcing experience, the client’s experience in outsourcing other non-core functions, and TBI’s objective assessment of the ability of an outsourcer to positively impact the client’s computer services environment.

Successful Business Solutions

The client received:

  • An executive level assessment presentation identifying the potential scope of an RFP
  • A detailed financial baseline for the in-scope infrastructure operations
  • A comprehensive request for proposal
  • A qualified list of suitable vendors to receive the RFP
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