How to select IT service provider?

The choice using consultants

As it was already told above, there is an opportunity to address the specialized companies to consultants for the choice of the supplier of IT services, in particular, of IT outsourcing. Such consultants own the broad picture of the market and know all reefs, however, their help will manage in the additional amount.

As experts of Microsoft note, such specialized consultants are in difficult conditions as they need to monitor all changes in the high-growth market and also to develop some analysis algorithm of different services. Besides, they need to solve a problem of integration of services of different suppliers.

"Even with obvious advantages of cloud computing, to existence of offers in the market and the accruing maturity of solutions, it is worth to remember that most the companies has own IT infrastructure in which money and investments are made and it is necessary for them without serious consequences and in the shortest possible time to switch to an external cloud and services", - representatives of the company explained TAdviser.

By preparation of large and large-scale projects external consultants can be helped very opportunely.

Independent choice

To help customers to understand methodology of modern outsourcing, the ASTRA non-profit partnership in 2013 developed the special directory of IT services (it is possible to get acquainted with some materials according to the link ^[1]). It allows to obtain up-to-date information about the existing models of support of IT services that including "try on" some of them on itself(himself). In April, 2014 work on creation of the new version of the directory began.

The director of ICL Services of ICL Group Sergey Solovyov considers that it is possible not to be mistaken with the choice of IT service provider, following a below-mentioned algorithm:

• Estimate the level of a maturity of providers of IT services
• Create expectations from service provider, create accurate requirements to their rendering
• Formulate a request for the offer and select several candidates – two or three finalists
• Book audit of processes and information which was provided by suitable candidates.
• Relying on analysis results, to estimate categories of cost and flexibility of service provider

At the same time, as consultants of Borlas note, the IT supplier should meet the following requirements

• Have practical experience of project implementation and have success stories and a customer feedback. In the Russian market there are companies with more than 20th summer experience of rendering of services
• Have sufficient examination and resources for project implementation and rendering services. Most effectively the provider renders the services which are already unrolled on the large customer base.
• The company should be financially stable. Participation in ratings serves as good criterion at selection too.
• The provider should have simple and transparent metrics of quality evaluation of the provided services confirmed with the financial responsibility for result.
• About completeness of the rendered services it is possible to judge by the directory of services of provider. The provider should have an understanding and experience of a transient period by transfer by the customer of functions to external control.

Let's dwell upon some moments:

Formalization of processes and preparation of SLA

Irina Semyonova, the marketing vice president of Maykor company, advises before beginning selection process of the supplier, to develop the directory of IT services. The main objective – to provide to key personnel of business divisions the tool allowing to approach consciously assessment of the quality level of IT services at the enterprise. So to formalize business processes.

Besides, according to her, it is required to prepare the agreements on the level of service (SLA) made taking into account real requirements. In SLA the structure of IT services and indicators allowing to estimate quality of their providing makes a reservation (for example, the maximum downtime, terms of maintenance and dr).

Sergey Solovyov, the director of ICL Services of ICL Group, as the recommendation noted that you should not abuse very strict requirements to quality and efficiency of rendering services if your production processes do not require the high speed of reaction. "Reduction of time allowed for solution at each additional o'clock can significantly increase the total cost of service", - he explained.

Project experience

When choosing provider it is necessary to estimate project experience, qualification of employees, the size of the company and its "experience" in the market in the status outsourcing provider as the boom of outsourcing caused splash in the companies which already rendered any services of outsourcing before (for example, a hosting) is important, but have no sufficient experience and resources as service - provider, experts of I-Teco note. The large outsourcing companies, as a rule, invest also in the personnel, and in material resources, have hundreds of appropriate certificates from world vendors.

Motivation of employees

The professional IT service provider builds the relations with the client at all levels, from strategic to operational. It is impossible to construct high-quality service and to reach customer satisfaction, without having built up the correct interaction with all participants of process, without having achieved that motivation of employees, specialists of Asteros consider. First of all, it is about in practice to show pluses from joint cooperation and work of service provider (service provider). Returning to the question of the choice of the partner, work should be based on the principle of win win if the IT service provider separates and itself preaches such approach, then chances of successful cooperation increase repeatedly.

Comparison of costs

One of important the moment when choosing service provider - comparison of a ratio "costs – quality" at which estimates of business users are defining in a question of quality - as far as they are happy with the happened changes, efficiency of corporate services, data availability, quality of support.

It is also necessary to commensurate the cost of the contract with financial opportunities of the IT outsourcer. If its volume of business is equal to the amount which the customer is going to pay, then cooperation with such supplier is regarded as rather risky. In case of emergency situations the contractor it is banal can't find resources for their correction, remind in CROC.

See Also

• Points of negotiations with cloud provider
• Cloud computing: main determinations
• Public clouds vs Private clouds
• Creation of private clouds (market of Russia)
• The main trends of the market of private clouds in Russia
• Private clouds: typical customers
• Cloud services (market of Russia)
• Market of IT services of Russia
• Private clouds in a public sector
• Private clouds in the banking sector
• Cloud solutions for SMB
• Service companies: western vs domestic
• Economy of cloud services
• Data security in a cloud
• World market of cloud services
• Main trends of the world market of private clouds

Notes