Johannesburg, 23 Jul 2009
The economic recession is forcing companies to slash budgets, but business leaders should be careful of undermining their chances of long-term success, warns IT Naledi sales and marketing director, Hashiem Bardien.
“In previous downturns we've seen a lot of companies outsource their entire IT infrastructure and management as an aggressive cost-cutting measure,” says Bardien. “But that can be dangerous. IT is now so entwined with internal business processes that if you outsource it all you can lose very important strategic insight.”
According to Bardien, the IT skills shortage in the country is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses. He adds: “A specialist infrastructure outsourcing company has an advantage in being able to provide attractive career paths, a variety of experience and the chance to constantly upgrade skills. Tapping that pool of skills is the best reason to outsource the management of your IT infrastructure.”
Bardien believes companies should retain strong internal skills to guide the IT strategy, then outsource the implementation of that strategy. He points out that a company needs to choose the right outsourcing partner; one which is both flexible and has high-level enterprise knowledge and experience.
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