Outsourcing of information technologies. Economic development of the IT outsourcing market in Russia

The IT component of modern production requires regular investment, but is difficult to internal audit

Enterprise information systems maximize productivity while minimizing costs for both core and non-core activities

Globalization in banking effectively means application unification and encourages IT outsourcing

First, let's define terms. Outsourcing (outsourcing -English) - a management term that means the use of external resources to solve production problems: the involvement of subcontractors fulfilling the order of the general contractor. This may be a one-time order, for example, the development of a program, or a permanent one - the manufacture and supply of any products and services that are an integral part of the main production.

Outsourcing opportunities

The services of subcontractors are resorted to when it is difficult or not economically profitable for the organization to independently engage in any area of ​​activity. At the same time, without this direction, the enterprise will not be able to fully function and remain competitive.

There are many typical examples of outsourcing. They fit into the activities of many organizations so logically that they are perceived as an integral part of it. The most common example is the organization of advertising and PR activities. A specialized agency is hired, which develops and conducts advertising and PR campaigns, presentations, receptions, etc. under the development strategy of the enterprise. It is quite obvious that maintaining a large number of specialists in advertising, public relations and marketing is an unbearable cost even for a large organization.

Now, before our eyes, a campaign is unfolding to change the image of one of the giants cellular communication. The largest international companies are working on its development and promotion. advertising agencies. An example of such outsourcing raises no objections - advertising activities are too specific and far from the main production. But we should not forget that in a particular case, a vital area in the company's work has been transferred to outsourcing. After all, the success of the operator's new brand contributes to an increase in competitiveness, and, consequently, the operator's income.

Another example of outsourcing would be legal services when a contract with a law firm for subscription services more profitable than content in the staff of the company's own lawyer. An example closer to the IT field is the outsourcing of billing services. A similar company operates on the Russian market and sells these services to telecom operators. Its work is organized as follows: the program itself is located on a server to which users connect via the Internet. Operators upload their own statistics, the program calculates it and displays it in in electronic format accounts for clients. It remains only to send them out. Any financier will be able to evaluate the savings that the customer receives - no need to purchase your own server to calculate statistics, no need to purchase software for the formation of invoices and, most importantly, to debug it, to maintain specialists servicing billing (their salaries are much higher than the average), etc.

Why is it that IT outsourcing is of particular interest, i.e. transfer for maintenance by an external supplier of information and computer systems of the enterprise? This is primarily due to the fact that in the conditions of working with huge volumes of heterogeneous information, increased competition in almost any field of activity, and a shortage of qualified personnel, reliable and high-quality operation of enterprise IT systems allows you to quickly make the right management decisions, monitor the organization's activities in real time. . The IT component is a very specific part of modern production, requiring regular investments and at the same time difficult to internal audit. How to organize and control IT activities in the most rational way? The West gave an unequivocal answer a long time ago - to use the services of third-party providers specializing in the provision of IT services. Are you ready Russian corporations outsource your IT systems? How can outsiders be allowed into the holy of holies of an enterprise where confidential information circulates? And if so, to what extent?

There is no single approach for making a revolutionary decision on how to move from the "subsistence economy" in the enterprise to the services of a third-party supplier. The least a company can do is analyze internal and external drivers and weigh the possible risks and benefits of outsourcing services.

Internal causes , forcing to turn to the services of outside firms, due to the need that arises within the organization itself:

Focus on core business without being distracted by non-core areas;

V as soon as possible establish and promptly maintain the smooth operation of information systems;

Reduce financial costs for building and maintaining IT systems;

Promptly involve qualified specialists in solving IT problems;

Get quick access to advanced information technologies;

Reduce the risk of losing important data;

Make more transparent and predictable costs for information and technical support;

Reduce the cost of recruiting and training IT staff.

In addition to this, there are a number external causes , encouraging the use of IT outsourcing.

Firstly, Russia's entry into the WTO is obviously not far off. Already today, many domestic organizations are faced with the problem of survival and increased competition in the conditions of the arrival of Western companies. Opening world markets for Russian business will require considerable flexibility and a clearer focus on customer needs. That's why rapidly certification of Russian enterprises according to ISO 9000,2001 is being carried out, confirming their efficiency in market conditions, transparency and controllability. Needless to say, the high level and smooth functioning of IT systems play a decisive role in this.

Secondly, On January 12, 2004, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation introduced the standard “Collateral information security organizations of the banking system Russian Federation". This is a document, the provisions of which “are applied on a voluntary basis, unless, in relation to specific provisions, the obligation is established by the current legislation of the Russian Federation, regulatory legal act Bank of Russia or the terms of the agreement. From this it is clear that the maturity and readiness of IT systems financial institutions to comply with the mentioned standard will largely determine their status in the banking system of the Russian Federation. It is not always possible to comply with the standards of the standard by in-house IT departments.

Thirdly, in three years, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation intends to introduce international system oversight Basel II. The transition to it is necessary for better integration into the global banking system, raising international ratings and simplifying borrowing in foreign markets. Basel II is a set of supervisory recommendations approved in 2004 by the central banks of the leading countries, which is necessary to improve the stability of banking systems. It is based on three main components: the capital adequacy of banks to cover the risks they take, the adequacy of banking supervision and market discipline, i.e. bank compliance with the principles corporate governance and internal rules of control and accounting.

Obviously, compliance with Basel II requirements is directly related to the high level of reliability and performance of corporate IT systems.

External and internal reasons are closely intertwined, since external ones are pushing banks to optimize the use of internal resources to meet market requirements.

If the existing concept of IT is decomposed into components, then it is obvious that a certain proportion of them was initially outsourced by most corporate customers. It is a part of IT systems related to telecommunications.

A bit of history

The pioneer of communication services outsourcing in Russia was Sprint Set (Russia), now known as Ekvant. The joint venture created by the American company Sprint, Moscow Central Telegraph and regional telegraphs entered the Russian market with the slogan "Any time, any place". Initially, his task was to support international corporations in Russia and the CIS countries and provide them with high-quality world-class telecommunication services under a single SLA (Service Level Agreement) regardless of the location of the customer. Companies from the banking and financial sectors were among the first clients of Sprint Network. Email, operating on the X.400 protocol, proved itself so well that bank transaction confirmations were sent through it. Managed router services offered by Sprint Network to corporative clients, made it possible to create and develop regional corporate networks, where an outsourcer company was responsible for interbranch communications.

Following Sprint Network, other operators began to provide comprehensive services, including not only communication channels, but also equipment, their monitoring and round-the-clock support. In fact, the scope of responsibility of the customer was limited to the port of the Local Area Network (LAN). Further, from this port to the junction with another territorially remote LAN, the routing and delivery of corporate data was carried out by the operator. Of course, we are not talking about such giants as RAO EC or Gazprom, which have created their own telecommunications companies. In their case, this specialization was economically justified. The overwhelming majority of corporations turned to outsourcing solutions of domestic and international telecom operators operating in Russia. The same was the case with telephone services, which are provided on a turnkey basis and maintained by telephone companies.

The foregoing allows us to say with a high degree of certainty that the telecommunications component of IT systems is transferred to the support of a third-party organization quite painlessly (meaning the principle of the solution itself). To a large extent, this is due to the fact that the transfer of information over the networks of telecom operators is accompanied by organizational and technological guarantees, and the preservation of confidentiality.

The IT systems maintained by the enterprises themselves include LAN support, a computer park with peripherals, servers with corporate information and applications necessary to support the work of the front and back offices. IT departments are responsible for their work and development, which often create unique software development to automate the activities of their companies. But life does not stand still. Increasing the efficiency of corporate governance, monitoring production, and introducing a system of key performance indicators required comprehensive automation and the creation of corporate information systems. The purpose of their implementation is to maximize productivity by minimizing costs, both for core and non-core activities. The result became possible only with the optimization of business processes for the provision of products / services. In the course of business process reengineering, production processes, operations, etc. are formalized. to ensure the transparency of the enterprise. It is formalization that makes it possible to assess the economic efficiency of the enterprise at all its stages. It is she who is able to clearly qualify processes as core and non-core activities and help in making a decision to transfer them to outsourcing.

When it comes to enterprise IT systems and business processes and support corporate applications, attracting third-party companies to cooperate is not an easy decision. In the first quarter of 2004, Market,Visio (Russia), on the initiative of one of the largest domestic IT companies IBS, held marketing research dedicated to the study current situation and prospects for the development of the corporate IT outsourcing market among large Moscow enterprises. The GARS Telecom company was engaged in further research of the situation with IT outsourcing, studying the “readiness of Russian companies for IT outsourcing” at the end of 2004 and in 2005 and noting the positive dynamics of this market. According to the Market, Visio research, there is no clear understanding of the term “IT outsourcing” on the market today: this is the name for everything that is bought outside, from the services of integrators for the development and implementation of projects to the development of custom software. Neither customers nor providers have a common understanding of the structure of these services. And the absence of a formalized service, as you know, hinders its promotion.

Studies have shown that the main barriers to IT outsourcing today are:

Distrust of the outsourcer: the establishment of effective cooperation is hindered by "mental barriers", moral unwillingness to give "someone else's" "one's innermost";

Equality of costs (aspects of competition between the outsourcer and "subsistence farming");

Lack of market choice (impossibility to navigate/compare) significant success stories and a limited number of customers, as well as lack of information on the cost-effectiveness calculation scheme (pricing complexity);

Unestablished practice of interaction between the client and the supplier (lack of a solution for IT departments).

The conclusions drawn apply to representatives of a large corporate business, since the Market Visio study was conducted on this segment. However, the picture will be incomplete if you do not touch the market as a whole.

Who is a potential user of IT outsourcing services in Russia today?

The first group of customers, of course, will be state organizations. Registration in the final budgets of programs " e-government" and electronic signature requires the transition of office work to paperless technologies, which is tantamount to placing government orders for the performance of certain types of work by subcontractors. It is logical that their further support and maintenance will be carried out by professionals.

The second group is large Russian corporations, whose success in the market largely depends on the effectiveness of enterprise management. And this requires powerful IT systems. Their development or adaptation of those available on the market requires professional personnel, which are expensive to maintain. What is the appeal to IT outsourcing.

The third group - medium and small businesses. Survival and development requires them to concentrate on core activities. For this segment, outsourcing of typical tasks is an opportunity for rapid advancement in the market.

Banking organizations show interest in outsourcing due to the need to back up their information systems.

In Market,Visio research the main definitions of IT outsourcing were formulated for the first time, and this process itself was segmented in relation to the domestic market. According to the conclusions made by the researchers, IT outsourcing services consist of the following segments:

Outsourcing of data centers;

PC and server outsourcing;

Network outsourcing;

Outsourcing of corporate applications.

Analysts at Gartner distinguish two forms of IT service acquisition by end users: discrete and outsourced.

A discrete way is understood as an agreement to purchase IT services within a project with a certain scope of work and a limited time frame. These projects can last from a few weeks to several years. In the case of a discrete way of purchasing IT outsourcing services, the IT management functions remain with the end user.

Outsourcing is understood as a multi-year or annual contract for the provision of services for a long period of time with a certain level of quality. Outsourcing implies a certain transfer of managerial authority for the provision of IT services to a third-party provider (ESP - External Service Provider). An outsourcing agreement always involves the provision of business management and transaction processing services, and may also include services for product support, consulting and development, integration. Under an outsourcing contract, it is possible for the service provider to acquire the assets of the company and its personnel. Outsourcing services can be provided both on the client side and on the side of the service provider. Outsourcing services are divided into IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing.

Having understood the definitions and their content, having formalized own business processes by analyzing internal and external factors influence, the enterprise can independently decide on the possibility of transferring IT systems to outsourcing.

In addition to the above factors, the driving force in making decisions on outsourcing is often the creation of an IT infrastructure redundancy system. These works, as world experience shows, are not carried out on their own, but in conjunction with the development and implementation of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP). The essence of the approach is that when developing BCP, an organization plans measures to create a reliable and uninterrupted redundancy system, including for corporate IT infrastructure. With an integrated approach within the framework of BCP, enterprises become understandable and justified the costs of corporate information communications, which are quite difficult to assess in isolation from the main task - maintaining the efficiency of the enterprise in case of emergency.

By itself, the development of the RRV gives the company the opportunity to look at the work of the enterprise from a new angle, assessing the risks in all areas of activity. The preparation of the HRV allows linking together various areas of the organization's work, highlighting the vital ones, assessing their interdependence, and organizing their reasonable reservation.

If an enterprise performs all possible work on its own, then it will have to take on the risks associated with ensuring business continuity. How expedient is this from both an organizational and an economic point of view?

Outsourcing gets credit

The widespread use of outsourcing in the West is due to a pragmatic approach to the concept of "reasonable expediency":

Who is the best person to do air conditioning maintenance? own specialists Or a specialized firm?

Who will provide high-quality repair of the power supply system, your own specialists or a specialized company?

who is better...?

Such questions can be asked indefinitely, although in the conditions of a long-established market for the division of labor, this looks, to put it mildly, strange.

Often the decision in favor of outsourcing can be difficult to make due to doubts about the reliability of the partner. They can only be dispelled by a skillfully drawn up agreement that regulates the rights and obligations of the parties, a positive experience of cooperation with customers (success story), as well as an own employee responsible for coordinating interaction with the outsourcing company. The last factor is sometimes one of the most important. That is why, in this position in the organization, I would like to see a professional who knows the whole range of issues and, of course, is well motivated. By the way, the motivation of your own employees ceases to be a problem when the cost of non-core activities is reduced. And this is equivalent to increasing the loyalty of the staff and interest in the final result, which also leads to a reduction in risks in the work of the organization.

The concept of outsourcing has many aspects: organizational, technical, procedural, social, etc. Each organization in its own way evaluates the importance of each of them. Any branch of the economy has its own specifics. Speaking about the Russian banking system as a whole, we can conclude that “globalization” in the field of banking actually means the unification of applications and encourages IT outsourcing, i.e. to some unification in the organization of all aspects of the activities of financial organizations.

Foreign banks, starting to work on the Russian market, come with their own technologies, business processes, standards, etc., and, as we are convinced, this works, and works efficiently.

Annotation: The purpose of the lecture: To study the basic concepts of outsourcing, terminology, stages of development and features of use in the domestic economy.

1.1. History of the development of outsourcing practice

The term outsourcing comes from the English words "outsourcing - outside resource using" - the use of external resources, attracting resources from outside. The essence of the concept is the transfer to the execution of individual functions or business processes external organization, which has the necessary resources for this, on the basis of a long-term agreement. Under the concluded agreement, the assets of the enterprise related to the functions and business processes to be assigned, personnel, and managerial responsibility may be temporarily transferred to a third-party organization.

Outsourcing can be defined as "the transfer of an internal unit or units of an enterprise and all associated assets to a service provider organization offering to provide a certain service for a certain time at an agreed price" .

Outsourcing allows you to effectively distribute internal and external resources, means of the organization to successfully achieve its business goals. The basis of the concept is the division of the enterprise functions into primary and secondary ones, and the further transfer of secondary functions to an external organization that specializes in these functions and more effectively solves the tasks assigned to it. Outsourcing is often seen as a cost-cutting tool, as well as a way for an enterprise to focus on core activities. Mature functions are considered suitable for outsourcing, which do not use innovations that give the organization a competitive advantage. It is not recommended to outsource strategic development enterprises, construction and development of architecture, business processes that are of strategic importance and represent the key competencies of the enterprise.

The main reasons for using outsourcing as a management strategy are:

• desire to concentrate resources own enterprise at "profit centers" - core business processes within which the main products are created;
• improving the quality of services;
• absence or lack of own qualified specialists;
• access to new advanced technologies and technical knowledge;
• cost reduction.

The antonym of the term "outsourcing" is the concept of "insourcing" - the transfer of new functions to be performed by internal divisions of the enterprise or the expansion of the activities of divisions for additional loading of existing capacities or assets. An example of insourcing is database usage customers received from the sale of a certain type of product for the sale or promotion of another product, the leasing of space not used in production. Insourcing allows businesses to reduce the cost of wasted capacity. When applying this approach, a separate division with autonomous management accounting can be created in the staff structure of the enterprise, providing specialized services to both other internal divisions of the enterprise and external counterparties. Most often, insourcing is used for processes related to finance, labor resources and information systems.

1.2. Problems of outsourcing in the Russian economy

Despite the fact that outsourcing has gained wide recognition in that part of the world economy, which is built according to Western principles, there have been few examples of such practice in our country until recently:

• LUKOIL and YUKOS spun off their drilling divisions into independent companies LUKOIL-Bureniye and Sibirskaya Servisnaya Kompaniya, respectively, without retaining a controlling interest in these companies;
• "LOMO", defense enterprise, engaged in the production and sale of opto-mechanical and opto-electronic devices, abandoned its own production of printed circuit boards after the analysis showed that the equipment of the existing workshop is significantly outdated and requires modernization;
• "Irbit Motorcycle Plant" sold the blacksmith and automatic workshops;
• company "August", manufacturer women's clothing under the OGGI brand, reserved only the development of models, technological training production, purchase of materials and accessories and sale of ready-made clothes. The production of the clothing itself is carried out on the basis of outsourcing and subcontracting with many small and medium-sized enterprises in the light industry.

The explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the widespread opinion that the following objective circumstances hinder the development of outsourcing in Russia:

• firstly, the business of Russian enterprises was not always formed on the basis of economic considerations, and often the organization of production did not correspond to market economic principles;
• secondly, the legal environment does not allow establishing trusting relationships with outside organizations from the first contacts;
• thirdly, the level of development of outsourcing service providers is insufficient to ensure the quality required by customer enterprises.

We have to admit that these circumstances take place in our economy, but, in spite of everything, over the past 3-4 years, the situation with the spread of outsourcing has begun to change for the better. This is due to the following reasons:

• During this time there have been significant qualitative shifts in the economic and public life country;
• Other ways of optimizing production, alternative to outsourcing, have already been tried by many enterprises, while competition in business is not only not weakening, but also intensifying.

Almost all of the former large Soviet industrial enterprises (associations), which still form the basis of our economy, have already carried out their own restructuring, separating non-core assets from their composition - both not related to core activities, and closely related to core production.

Improving the legal environment in which the activities of the customer and the contractor of outsourcing services are carried out, significantly affects the spread of outsourcing. V Lately a noticeable streamlining of rule-making in the field of tax and accounting, administrative legal relations, competition law has led to the establishment of a more responsible behavior of businessmen in the field of entrepreneurship.

However, opacity is still inherent in very many enterprises in Russia, which does not contribute to the establishment of trusting relationships necessary for the transition to outsourcing. In conditions when most of the assets are hidden by enterprises and cannot serve as security for their obligations, it is difficult to count on the reliability of both the customer and the service provider. In addition, the lack of transparency of the business slows down the decision on the possibility of using outsourcing firms specializing in the provision of legal, accounting and other services, since, as shareholders believe, this can lead to information leakage.

Another problem on the way of outsourcing is the low level of quality of services provided. Meanwhile, this problem is temporary and quickly solved. The lack of sufficiently qualified managers of outsourcing companies, the lack of time-tested technologies for replicating advanced solutions are fair claims, but they fall into the category usually made by customers during the formation of any business.

What is really problematic in this service sector is the emerging tendency for outsourcing companies to overestimate the cost of their services by including their own costs in the price, including those associated with the risks of default by other organizations or with inefficient management own business.

This problem, together with the general, still low level of quality, as well as the weakness of our judicial and enforcement proceedings, do not allow the customer to properly protect their interests from an unscrupulous service provider, even if they are carefully spelled out in contracts, which is a direct consequence of insufficient compliance by market participants with regulatory acts regulating not only outsourcing, but business in general in Russia.

As for the prospects for the development of outsourcing, then, undoubtedly, in the conditions of active economic growth, the ongoing process of restructuring specific enterprises, this type of business will develop.

1.3. Definition of IT outsourcing

To date, there are various approaches to the definition of IT outsourcing. In them, this concept is considered both from different positions of outsourcing practice (cost reduction, quality of service, range of services, access to skills and abilities, risks, degree of technological maturity), and various theoretical foundations (economic theory, transaction cost theory, management theory, theories decision making and etc.).

IT outsourcing can be defined as " significant contribution external providers into physical and (or) human resources associated with the IT infrastructure of the client organization as a whole or its (infrastructure) separate components "or" the decision of the enterprise to transfer part or all of the functions of servicing corporate IS to an external service provider (or providers) in order to so that the company can achieve its goals."

Summarizing the theoretical developments, we can conclude that, as a rule, IT outsourcing refers to the transfer of part or all of the IT functions to an external service provider under the terms of a long-term agreement, under which the transfer or sale of IT assets is carried out in conjunction with the transfer of personnel to specified period.

In many enterprises that are not related to the market information technologies, the role of the IT department is to perform important, but non-core functions that provide and support the core business of the enterprise. Therefore, IT functions are often considered as candidates for outsourcing. Wherein Special attention is focused on reducing IT costs while providing the required level of performance, quality, availability and flexibility of IT services to end users.

The reasons for switching to IT outsourcing have their own industry specifics. For government agencies, these include - a severely limited IT budget, gaining access to new technologies and professional resources, the need to increase the volume and improve the quality of IT services without increasing the number of staff; for financial organizations - reduction of operating costs, in industry - increase in production efficiency, in wholesale and retail– Ensuring business continuity.

Basically, IT outsourcing is in demand by enterprises that have reached a certain level of development of their IT resources, including the level of organization of their management. In economically developed countries it is widespread among financial institutions, where IT requirements are particularly high, as well as in the manufacturing sector. IT outsourcing is used by leading international corporations such as Henkel, Ford, British Petroleum, BASF, Petro SA and many others.

For Russia, IT outsourcing is a relatively new organizational scheme. At present, according to the IDC report "Russia IT Services 2009-2013 Forecast and 2008 Analysis", the share of outsourcing in the total volume of the IT services market is 12.4% (volume Russian market IT services ~$5.22 billion). Russian enterprises use separate outsourcing services, but IT outsourcing has not yet received mass distribution. Customers of outsourcing services are enterprises of the oil and gas, energy and metallurgical industries, communications enterprises, financial and credit and government agencies, trading companies, representative offices of Western companies.

1.4. Outsourcing terminology

The outsourcing relationship links the outsourcing service provider and the client enterprise in some way. Outsourcing agreements apply various forms partnerships, which is fixed in the terms of the outsourcing contract. At the same time, both external independent outsourcing companies and organizations connected with the customer enterprise by economic and legal relations can act as a supplier of outsourcing services.

Subsidiary how an outsourcing service provider is created for the purpose of fulfilling certain functions supporting the business of the parent company, which retains full control over the quality of work and the possibility of their coordination. The parent company periodically audits the subsidiary, and entrusts operational work entirely to the subsidiary.

An example of this approach is the separation of the IT department into a separate independent company. This form of partnership allows the IT service to fully focus on solving the problems of business strategy, and not deal with issues of raising its status, the struggle for resources within the enterprise, which is especially typical for industrial enterprises where IT functions are not core. When allocated to a subsidiary, the IT service operates on a client-oriented technology, providing its services to the business at a competitive level. In areas where the level of service delivery is higher than that of other outsourcing IT companies, non-core tasks should be transferred to third-party outsourcers.

Siemens Business Services and Lufthansa Systems are considered successful examples of the separation of IT departments into independent units. The Russian example is the Sibintek company, which was established in 1999 as part of the Yukos Oil Company as a subsidiary service company providing services in the development and implementation of information technology. Gradually, all information divisions of NK Yukos were transferred to a new company, which provides the necessary IT services to the parent company on a contract basis. A few IT departments remained inside the company, which began to be called "customer service", and all the performers were outside the company.

joint venture involves the creation of a new company by a client enterprise and an outsourcer. At the same time, part of the personnel and assets of the client enterprise are transferred to a new company, and not to an outsourcer. Initially, the joint venture serves to ensure the competitiveness of the client enterprise, and then to receive additional profit from the provision of services to third parties. The parties are full partners, share the profits earned by the new company.

To strengthen the relationship in partnerships, sometimes a client company or an outsourcer acquires a stake in partner capital (part of the shares). From the standpoint of the client enterprise, such a step is a means of ensuring security, and from the standpoint of the outsourcer, it demonstrates its intention to act in the interests of the client enterprise.

From the point of view of the volume of transferred functions, the use of resources and the division of responsibility, such forms of partnerships are distinguished as full and partial outsourcing.

Full outsourcing implies an outsourcing contract, according to which the state of employees is transferred from the internal unit to the external service provider, along with the functions given, performed within the enterprise continues to be borne by the customer.

Partial outsourcing is the most common form of outsourcing. In the field of e-commerce, an example of partial outsourcing is the transfer to an outsourcer of support for the operation of the company's network equipment.

Organization of the transition to IT outsourcing

One of the trends in the domestic IT services market is an increase in the number of consulting projects to create IT services for organizations based on the best world practices of the "IT Infrastructure Library" (ITIL) and the IT Service Management (ITSM) standard model. At the same time, special attention is paid to reducing the costs of IT services while ensuring the required level of performance, quality, availability and flexibility of information services to end users.

IT outsourcing is a methodology that helps solve the issues of organizing an efficient and cost-effective IT service that can support key business needs.

The term outsourcing comes from English words"outsourcing - outside resource using" - using external resources, attracting resources from outside. The essence of the concept lies in the transfer of certain functions or business processes to an external organization that has the necessary resources for this, on the basis of a long-term agreement. As part of the agreement, assets related to the outsourced functions and business processes, personnel, and managerial responsibility may be temporarily transferred to a third party.

For the first time, individual elements of outsourcing were used by organizations to solve legal problems at the beginning of the 20th century, and as a method of industrial cooperation it began to be used in the 20s-30s in the automotive industry in the field of cooperation of highly specialized industries.

Outsourcing of production of components, as an effective way of organizing production, is typical for the automotive industry in developed countries. Ford Corporation currently purchases two thirds of parts and services from third parties. Toyota is mainly engaged in the design, assembly and sale of products, in the production of necessary parts and accessories. external enterprises. Many market leaders in communications equipment, computer technology(For example, Cisco) switched to manufacturing outsourcing.

The spread of the concept of outsourcing is associated with the use of resources of external organizations in the field of information technology and refers to the 60s. XX century. At this time, the American company General Motors transferred its information functions to the company "Electronic Data System" (EDS), which provided annual cost savings for organizations. information support in the amount of about 4 billion dollars. At the same time, the quality of information services has also improved

The basis of the concept of outsourcing is the division of the organization's functions into primary and secondary, and the further transfer of secondary functions to an external organization that specializes in these functions and more effectively solves the tasks assigned to it.

Over time, the concept of outsourcing has expanded to transfer specialized companies in some cases and the main functions of the organization. However, as a rule, non-core, standardly implemented processes and functions that are not related to outsourcing are transferred to outsourcing. key activity organizations. This approach allows the organization to concentrate on the core business and not spend its resources on supporting auxiliary processes, reduce costs, and solve problems associated with obtaining modern technical knowledge.

In most organizations, the role of the IT department is to perform important but non-core functions that enable and support its core business. Therefore, IT functions are often considered as candidates for outsourcing.

An illustration of this approach is provided by the management decisions of the Russian insurance company OAO ROSNO (OAO ROSNO is a large Insurance Company, provides services for 95 types of compulsory and voluntary insurance.). In order to concentrate on the core business - the provision of insurance services, the company's management decided to transfer non-core IT functions to support the IT infrastructure to outsourcing, including comprehensive maintenance of IT systems and user support. To date, outsourcing services for this project are provided by the DATA FORT Outsourcing Center of IBS. The transferred functions include such functions as administration of network and mail resources, service support, support for software and computer equipment, anti-virus protection, administration of DBMS and web services, data backup, maintenance and operation of network equipment, and a number of others. A special feature of the project is the transfer to the staff of the DATA FORT Outsourcing Center of employees of the IT service of OJSC ROSNO, who previously served the company's IT infrastructure. Thus, the insurance company continues to use the services of the same IT specialists who have knowledge of the features of the corporate information system, and on the other hand, it gets the opportunity to concentrate on its core business, relieving itself of IT infrastructure support management, training and development of IT personnel. JSC "ROSNO" is the first insurance company in Russia, which almost completely outsourced its IT functions to a specialized company.

The main reasons for using outsourcing as a management strategy are:

1. desire to concentrate resources own organization on the main activity;
2. the need to improve the quality of their own products and services;
3. lack or lack of qualified specialists with advanced technologies and knowledge;
4. lack of own resources for implementation business strategies;
5. the need to reduce costs in a specific functional area.

Outsourcing is now widespread in many areas. modern business. Outsourcing service providers (outsourcers) offer their services in the field of information technology, marketing, logistics, production of components, accounting and reporting, personnel management, administrative services, legal support. An organization can simultaneously use several types of outsourcing services provided by different providers.

Outsourcing Institute (USA), in its research distinguishes two main types of outsourcing: business process outsourcing (BPO - business process outsourcing) and outsourcing in the field of information technology (IT outsourcing).

Business process outsourcing (BPO - Business Process Outsourcing) is the transfer of the right to own and manage any business process of an external organization to solve the organization's business problems. This type outsourcing is aimed at ensuring higher efficiency of business processes. Its need often arises in connection with the restructuring of the organization. In this case, outsourcing is a tool for change management.

One of the first companies to use business process outsourcing is British Petroleum (BP), the largest non-state oil and gas company in the world. The company is currently running an F&A outsourcing (F&A - Finance and Accounting) program with two partners, IBM and Accenture.

Business process outsourcing is a dynamically developing type of optimization of the activities of organizations, with the greatest growth being shown by legal outsourcing, outsourcing in the field of finance and accounting.

Some analysts single out manufacturing outsourcing as a separate group. Production outsourcing is the transfer of part of the chain of production processes or the entire production cycle to a third-party company, in cases where the production process on its own costs the organization more than the involvement of an external company. This type of outsourcing is common in mechanical engineering, among electronics manufacturers and telecommunications companies, extractive industries, organizations pharmaceutical industry, production of rocket and other defense and space complexes. It allows the organization to focus on developing new products and services, increase production flexibility and operate in other regions using cheaper labor.

There are different approaches to the definition of IT outsourcing. In them, this concept is considered both from different positions of outsourcing practice (cost reduction, quality of service, a set of services, access to skills and abilities, risks, degree of technological maturity), and various theoretical foundations (economic theory, transaction cost theory, management theory, theory decision making).

Most often, IT outsourcing refers to the transfer of part or all of IT functions to an external service provider under the terms of a long-term agreement, under which the transfer or sale of IT assets is carried out in conjunction with the transfer of personnel for a specified period.

The use of IT outsourcing began with support IT infrastructure, and eventually spread to the applied tasks and business processes it serves. Today, IT outsourcing is an established type of outsourcing service that is developing along with the information and communication technology market.

The main groups of services in the field of IT outsourcing are:

1. Technical support and IT infrastructure management: support for computer equipment, basic corporate services, telecommunications systems, information and technical security systems, business applications.
2. Development and development of information systems: development of applications and their integration with other systems, development of existing information systems.
3. Training and development of the personnel of the client organization in the field of IT: creation and implementation of training programs, evaluation of the effectiveness of training.
4. Provision of IT personnel of various skill levels to perform assigned tasks: developers, programmers, system administrators, database administrators, project managers, analysts, etc.

Making the decision to use outsourced services is strategic decision for the enterprise. Emphasizing the importance of this aspect, IBM defines its services in this area as strategic outsourcing: "IBM strategic outsourcing services are the management of applications, business processes and / or IT systems of the company performed by IBM."

Depending on the specific types of activities in which the outsourcer specializes, in the above groups of IT outsourcing, the following can be distinguished certain types:

1. offshore programming;
2. management of CRM/SCM/ERP client applications;
3. data storage outsourcing;
4. outsourcing access to applications;
5. hosting (e-business Hosting Services);
6. user support outsourcing;
7. support for network equipment (Network Outsourcing Services);
8. support for client workstations (NetWorkStation Management Services), etc.

World practice and Russian experience show that a significant part of the IT outsourcing market is software development foreign company- offshore programming. The most widespread use of offshore programming is in the United States. Offshore models are also used in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the Nordic countries. Active providers of offshore programming services are India, China, Mexico, Ireland and countries of Eastern Europe, including Russia. According to the results of the first rating "The 2006 Global Outsourcing 100" conducted by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), such software companies from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus as EPAM Systems, Luxoft, DataArt, Aplana Software and MERA Networks are named among the most promising outsourcing companies in the Rising Stars category. During the "The 2006 Global Outsourcing 100" project, companies were evaluated according to the criteria that are usually used by large customers when choosing service providers in the field of IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing: company size and growth dynamics of its income, sales markets and clientele, experience in creating additional value for clients, the level and completeness of expertise, certification, management experience.

After offshore programming, a common use case for outsourced IT services is the outsourced helpdesk.

To ensure the uninterrupted provision of services to users and solve problems associated with the maintenance and maintenance of various information systems, significant material and human resources of the IT service are required, subject to a limited budget. User support processes are key to providing a service to end users, but they belong to the group of auxiliary processes and are quite simply distinguished from the functions of an IT service. These processes are fairly well formalized. There are a number of Russian and foreign documents describing the work of the user support service, for example, ITIL documents. These reasons make Help Desk an ideal candidate for outsourcing. As a result of this step, the organization is able to reduce the cost of maintaining information systems, improve the price-quality ratio of IT services, and concentrate the efforts of its own IT staff on primary functions, incl. on solving the problems of developing information systems in accordance with the needs of the organization's business.

As an example of a successful project in the field of user support outsourcing, we can cite a contract concluded in 2002 between Digital Design and Ford Motor Company CJSC to provide technical support services for users of the information system of a Ford Focus car production plant in Vsevolozhsk. Having built a service process within the framework of the initial contract and having developed a set of documents necessary for work, CJSC "Ford Motor Company" annually renews the contract for technical support of users.

In general, outsourcing services in the field of information technology are provided by the largest manufacturers of computer hardware and software, network technologies and applications, system integrators, leading Big Four consulting companies and other consulting companies for which IT outsourcing is one of the activities. These include IBM, EDS, HP, Siemens Business Services, Infosys, Capgemini, Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp.(CSC), and others.

IBM is a leader in consulting for the use global networks and providing integration and outsourcing services.

The IBM Global Technology Services division provides IT infrastructure outsourcing services, server and workstation management services, and data storage management services.

IBM Global Business Services advises its clients on establishing Shared Service Centers and provides business function outsourcing services.

In the practice of IBM there are long-term outsourcing agreements. Thus, in September 2006, the insurance company Tokio Marine Brasil Seguradora S.A. signed a 10-year, $44 million contract with IBM to outsource its IT infrastructure. Under the terms of this contract, IBM will provide service integration, data center unification, and technical upgrades to most of the hardware environment. In addition to centralizing infrastructure IT services, IBM will provide outsourced services that will enable Tokio Marine to increase its business agility and responsiveness to future changes, in line with its forward growth plans. The contract provides for the management, monitoring and operation of information centers, the provision of information and reference services, end-user support and data exchange.

Basically, IT outsourcing is in demand by organizations that have reached a certain level of development of their IT resources, including the level of organization of their management. In economically developed countries, this type of outsourcing is widespread among financial institutions, where IT requirements are especially high, as well as in the manufacturing sector. IT outsourcing is used by leading international corporations such as Henkel, Ford, British Petroleum, BASF, Petro SA and many others.

For Russia, IT outsourcing is a relatively new organizational scheme, which is used with caution by enterprises in the oil and gas, energy and metallurgical industries, communications enterprises, financial and credit institutions, trading companies, etc.

Typical reasons for transferring the functions of their IT services to an outsourcer for most Russian organizations are the need to introduce advanced IT-based management technologies, low qualification own IT staff in certain areas, lack and lack of own resources to perform the full scope of work, lower cost of providing services based on external resources. IT outsourcing allows an enterprise to reduce the number of IT services, and hence the cost of maintaining highly qualified specialists, to use the freed up resources to achieve the main business goals.

Russian organizations use separate outsourcing services, but IT outsourcing has not yet received mass distribution.

The development of full-scale IT outsourcing in Russia is constrained by two significant circumstances. First, there is a complete absence legal framework. There are no legal concepts of the rights and responsibilities of the parties. Today it is difficult to imagine that, for example, a commercial bank would outsource its information systems along with the information contained in them. Another reason is the lack of necessary resources from Russian IT companies, both in terms of having sufficient qualified personnel, experience in managing external services, and free capital to acquire the client's I-assets. Nevertheless, as already noted, the vector of development of the Russian IT market coincides with global trends and, therefore, the prospects for the development of IT outsourcing look quite optimistic. This is confirmed by numerous facts of outsourcing of IT infrastructure. For example, Croc provides IT infrastructure maintenance for all EDS clients in Russia. Services of this kind are already provided by all the leading players in the Russian IT market.

Similar conclusions can be drawn in relation to projects for the creation of technoparks focused on offshore programming, although the situation here is far from cloudless. So far, these projects serve as a tool for attracting significant investments, the return on which is very problematic for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the penetration of offshore programming into the world market, for all its attractiveness, requires changes in the personnel training system - the myth about the availability of a sufficient number of qualified programmers does not stand up to criticism due to the language barrier, the lack of software production methods certified according to international standards, and most importantly due to the lack of a sufficient number of professional project managers and channels for promoting services.

Secondly, Russian IT companies do not yet have sufficient resources. According to various estimates, they employ between 20,000 and 30,000 employees, while leading Indian companies have an average of 40,000 employees.

Thirdly, entering the world market requires serious state support in terms of changing the legal framework, customs regulation and marketing of Russian companies through diplomatic and economic channels. This refers to the use of resources of exporting companies owned by the state.

Despite these problems, the prospects for technoparks should be recognized as very promising in the next 6-8 years.

7.8. Outsourcing of IT services

Outsourcing - modern look entrepreneurial activity, which is designed to provide the company with additional competitive advantages. Today, outsourcing is used by many large Russian companies that transfer to a third-party organization (usually a small, non-subsidiary enterprise) partially or completely a number of their own functions.

As Russian practice shows, many enterprises primarily outsource auxiliary and service business functions, such as repair, maintenance, accounting, information technology9. This allows enterprises to increase the volume of goods and services produced, which accordingly reduces the volume fixed costs per unit of output, which in turn leads to lower prices for finished products. But before deciding to use outsourcing, the company needs to determine how it is possible to take into account its own interests and ensure the necessary efficiency of the company as a whole.

In practice, the following motives and directions for switching to outsourcing are most often encountered:

1. Periodic repair work performed, maintenance of buildings and equipment.

2. Production of typical parts: cast blanks, internal non-main elements of products.

3. Workpieces or operations requiring special equipment.

4. Attraction of additional production capacities (or in case of failure of their own) under conditions of strong fluctuations in demand.

5. Outsourcing of auxiliary functions. For example: processes related to information technology, legal and accounting services are allocated for outsourcing, while the company itself retains interface functions for coordinating and controlling interaction.

The undoubted advantage of outsourcing is the speed and convenience of solving a particular production problem. After all, an outsourcing company offers, as a rule, a ready-made system that can work “here and now”.

In Western countries, outsourcing is more developed than in Russia. According to Industry Week Census on Manufacturing, 54.9% of US companies use outsourcing in manufacturing, 43.8% in equipment maintenance. To assess the feasibility of using outsourcing in the West, it is customary to use the scheme shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Assessment of the feasibility of outsourcing

Taking into account the assessment of the feasibility of outsourcing, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. The criteria for determining the type of operation are unique for each organization, as they are subject to management subjectivism.

2. "Reorganize" - perhaps in the short term - to outsource, but in the long term - to return to the control of the company.

3. "Options" - consideration of options such as: sale, expansion of services to other organizations, outsourcing, expanding the profile and thereby creating additional competitive advantage.

Availability of examples of successful application experience Russian companies outsourcing suggests that this type of strategy has good potential, but this moment The following factors significantly influence the development of outsourcing in Russia:

2. Lack of reliable suppliers - Russian suppliers(small manufacturing companies or trading companies) are unable to provide the required level of quality. Companies that use outsourcing are required to mobilize managerial, organizational and negotiation resources to ensure the required level of quality and stability of supply.

3. Decreased efficiency below the required level. Many companies quite rightly believe that manufacturing a product on the side takes more time than in-house. One of the arguments for own production sounds like this: "for ourselves, we can tighten up, mobilize all the forces and do it in the shortest possible time at minimal cost."

4. Increasing costs - if in the long run the cost of production on the side turns out to be more expensive, then the use of outsourcing is not effective.

5. Complication of management.

6. Inflexibility of suppliers - long-term investment of outsourcing enterprises is currently of little concern; maximizing profits is now the main goal of Russian suppliers.

7.8.1. Analysis of the effectiveness of outsourcing services

In order to conduct a performance analysis, it is necessary to create a framework that will be used to select "candidates" for outsourcing - a catalog of IT services that are provided by the IT department and consumed by the business departments. In fact, it is necessary to bring the activities of the IT department to a service-oriented approach, described by the ITIL / ITSM standards.

Having such a catalog, you can define a set of parameters and criteria that will be taken into account when deciding on the selection of "candidates" for outsourcing. An example of such criteria are:

– Criticality of the service for business;

– Manageability of this service in the current state of the IT department;

– Criticality of the service in terms of information security;

– Criticality of the service in terms of business continuity;

– Current quality of service;

– An approximate (preferably accurate) estimate of the cost of the service;

– Presence of competitive advantages in the service;

– The level of operational risks, etc.

If one of the cut-off criteria indicates the impossibility of outsourcing, then this service IT departments cannot be outsourced.

After creating a list of services, the expert group ranks each service - a "short" list of services is created, which will subsequently be analyzed for financial efficiency. Shortlisting allows an organization to identify the most risky outsourced IT business IT services and to exclude from the efficiency calculation those services that are known to be inefficient or risky to be outsourced.

At the next stage, the "short" list is analyzed in terms of a standard managerial task: "do it yourself" or "buy from others." To make decisions, it is necessary to evaluate:

– Current costs of providing the service;

– The cost of providing such a service by an outsourcing company;

– The cost of processes and activities for interaction with an external provider;

– Risks that may arise when outsourcing a service.

In addition to current costs and losses from possible risks, it is necessary to provide for the costs of creating and implementing processes to control the activities of an outsourcing company. A typical mistake is to withdraw all information technology expertise from the company, as this leads to an overestimation of the costs of providing IT services10. Therefore, when organizing a service model for managing IT services, it is necessary to provide for a certain competence within the company on this issue.

Thus, internal performance analysis can be divided into three separate parts:

– Cost analysis of the provision of services;

– Analysis of possible risks arising from the provision of services;

– The cost of organizing and implementing control processes for external providers.

7.8.2. Analysis of the cost of outsourcing services

The cost analysis of a service allows you to determine its cost based on the analysis of all constituent parts, of which the process of its provision consists, for example:

– Resource costs, including management costs life cycle resource;

– The cost of software, including the cost of software lifecycle management;

– Cost of service deployment projects;

– Cost of service delivery processes;

– Cost of service support processes;

– Cost of quality assurance activities, etc.

To assess the cost of processes, it is necessary to compose their description to the level of workplaces and allocate costs by cost centers within the IT department, after which an operational cost analysis is applied, the cost of processes is calculated.

With the right organization of work on the description of processes, this description can be used to document the current state of IT processes and improve activities in the event of a negative decision to outsource an IT service. As a result, for each IT service, a valuation showing the cost internal implementation IT services.

When the entire IT department is outsourced - based on the willful decision of the management, a preliminary assessment of the cost of providing services becomes meaningless. In this case, you can compare the total of all expenses for the IT department before outsourcing with the amount of contracts for information technology after the withdrawal and the cost of interaction processes between companies.

Therefore, the analysis of the total amount of IT costs can be carried out in the following sections:

– Resources;

- Equipment;

- Software;

– Salaries of employees;

– Cost of external service contracts;

– Cost of processes, etc.

The withdrawal of the entire IT department without first implementing a service-oriented approach and studying the local IT market, as a rule, leads to the birth of a subsidiary IT company, which is not viable without a parent company.

7.8.3. Risk analysis for service outsourcing

Cost analysis does not give a complete picture of the economic efficiency of outsourcing. To ensure completeness of the analysis, it is necessary to analyze the current losses from operational risks arising from the provision of each IT service, and the losses that may arise from risks associated with the transfer of services to the supplier.

The results of risk analyzes can affect both the cost and revenue side of the analysis. The main parameters of the cost analysis of risks associated with quality and reliability:

– the cost of losses due to insufficient quality of IT services;

– the cost of losses due to refusal to provide an IT service;

– cost reduction when using new technologies in an IT service;

- the cost of losses in case of leakage of confidential information when providing an IT service;

- the cost of losses in case of leakage of competitive advantages implemented in the IT service.

Risks 1, 2 and 3 can influence a positive decision to outsource a service, since the IT service provider becomes responsible for these risks and the company can cover its losses with penalties in the event of the occurrence (realization) of these risks.

Risks 4 and 5 influence the adoption of a negative decision to outsource a service, since very often an analysis of the additional costs for information security that arise when organizing outsourcing can show that it is unprofitable to withdraw processes (services) associated with the processing of confidential information11. That is, it is necessary to be especially careful when making decisions on outsourcing of each IT service and to analyze information security issues in the context of the decision being made.

One of the challenges that can be addressed by using the outsourcing model is the ability to transfer risk to an external provider, which can improve the efficiency of IT use. An example of risks transferred to an outsourcing company could be:

– leaving the company of qualified IT specialists;

– sickness and vacations of key specialists;

– errors in the service, leading to its failure, etc.

Accordingly, this component must be taken into account in the cost of the service in terms of making a positive or negative decision.

Conclusions. In view of the foregoing, it is possible to conclude that at present it is most effective to outsource the following types of IT services:

– services that are simple in terms of their organization and delivery;

– services that require expensive underutilized IT staff;

– services that do not contain confidential information;

– maintenance services for highly specialized equipment;

– services related to one-time development or implementation of software solutions.

If an IT service is complex or specific to a company, then outsourcing it can bring even more problems for it than the expected effects.

Very often the decision to outsource is made in connection with the unsatisfactory performance of the IT department, but in similar situation simply outsourcing IT work does not solve the problem. It is necessary to establish the reasons for the unsatisfactory performance of the IT department, and they can range from poor organization of work to the underdevelopment of business units that cannot articulate what they want from IT.

Thus, outsourcing is not just shifting the internal unresolved problems of the company onto the shoulders of an external supplier, but, first of all, establishing effective work internal IT department based on a service-oriented approach to service delivery, built on the basis of the ITIL / ITSM library.

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Speaking of services and IT, one cannot ignore such an important aspect of them as the transfer of certain business processes or production functions to the execution of another company that specializes in the relevant field. The execution of these processes/functions then becomes an outsourced IT service. After all, on the one hand, many companies literally cannot survive without a stable IT infrastructure, since production processes and communication with clients is largely determined by its condition. At the same time, the IT sector is not core for most companies, and therefore, in order to maintain the normal operation of IT, it is necessary to keep qualified specialists on staff. Nevertheless, sometimes the maintenance of even a few "IT specialists" is unjustified, or full-time specialists are not able to cope with solving high-level tasks. This measure reflects the general trend towards the division of labor. The principle of "in-house - only the main activity" is the basis of many large companies.

As a rule, in business practice there are several types of outsourcing:

• IT outsourcing (transfer of support and development of services related to IT infrastructure);
• production outsourcing (part of the production is transferred to third-party companies, a prime example- interaction Apple companies and Samsung);
• business process outsourcing (various business processes are transferred, including accounting, logistics, legal support, etc.).

Let's focus on the consideration of IT outsourcing, which refers to the partial or complete transfer of work related to the maintenance, development and support of the IT infrastructure into the hands of companies specializing in IT. Thus, in order to understand IT outsourcing, it is necessary to dwell on the concept of IT infrastructure.

IT infrastructure includes three groups of objects: hardware capacity, network infrastructure and software (Table 6.5).

Table 6.5

Components of an IT infrastructure

Typically, an audit of the IT infrastructure is the first step in moving to IT outsourcing. During the audit, a third-party company identifies infrastructure features, identifies potential vulnerabilities, and identifies key segments. As a result, the customer receives a detailed report with proposals for optimizing the infrastructure, its development and an assessment of its current state.

Among other works most often performed on outsourcing, the following types of activities are distinguished:

• creation, deployment and support of IT infrastructure;
• maintenance of technical documentation and logging of customer requests;
• technical budgeting and forecasting;
• analysis of operational risks;
• agreeing on disaster recovery plans and carrying out repairs;
• technical support ordinary employees of the company and / or its management;
• alignment and formalization of work processes in IT departments of large companies.

It should be said that IT outsourcing is a very common phenomenon that occurs no less than other types of outsourcing. The most common of its forms is the hosting of company websites, which has become an integral part of modern business practice. For example, if there were no hosting companies, then each company would need to lay a dedicated channel, buy a web server, purchase or develop software, provide protection, backup, hire maintenance personnel, etc. to maintain the site’s performance. Working with hosting companies (which, in fact, provide IT outsourcing services) can significantly save financial resources, since the costs of hosting companies for the listed operations are lower due to economies of scale.

The goals of using IT outsourcing in business practice can be formulated as follows:

• reduction of costs and expenses (tax, depreciation, as well as wages);
• increasing the predictability of service quality;
• prompt solution of technical problems;
• potential for business scalability (in the case of both an increase and decrease in the volume and pace of core activities).

For example, if a small firm exits the market, it is highly likely that they will not be able to dispose of elements of their own IT infrastructure (they have very low liquidity, so they are unlikely to be resold). A similar situation awaits a medium-sized enterprise under the agreed conditions: part of the equipment that was purchased with its own funds will simply stand idle. In the case of using IT outsourcing services, such problems cannot arise.

When using IT outsourcing, it is important to remember that commercial information, which may be company-critical, confidential or protected by law, will be transferred to third parties. Accordingly, it is always necessary to remember the principles of working with companies offering IT outsourcing services:

• it is desirable to outsource only non-core functions;
• it is necessary to clearly understand what services with what conditions of provision are transferred for execution to the contracting company;
• it is necessary to ensure that the company - the service provider does not disclose the information provided to it, for which it makes sense to conduct a behind-the-scenes reputation audit of the company.