OpsSec tops outsourcing trend

Infrastructure management outsourcing accounts for a large proportion of the overall European outsourcing market. Today, an average of 55% of European firms outsource some sort of infrastructure management activity, with 63% of very large firms engaged in this area. But, at the same time, firms are becoming smarter about the way they handle these contracts: 87% of them have opted for a selective outsourcing strategy, while an average of 45% of firms also have a single methodology for evaluating and selecting infrastructure management outsourcers.

Network management and operational security are the preferred service types that firms outsource, but other types of services — like help desk support and business continuity — will get further consideration in the short term.

The vendor preferences picture is especially interesting: Global IT providers, telcos' services arms, and local vendors are now equally attractive to buyers from very large and $1 billion-plus firms. Forrester expects fierce price and service competition to continue in this market.

My personal (and I supposed biased) viewpoint on this last observation is that as network, systems and security management all converge, enterprises will seek out those systems integrators skilled in IP networks, platforms, systems management and security as the infrastructure service providers of choice - and there are not many of them around...

CATEGORIES: 1analyst report, 1forrester, 1outsourcing, 1client trends, 1convergence