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Critical Teamwork
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Other Outsourcing Stories
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August 20, 2001 (Computerworld) -- It was already a tense situation. C-bridge Internet Solutions Inc., a technology and consulting services firm in Boston, was conducting a live migration of its Microsoft Exchange e-mail operations to its application service provider, USinternetworking Inc. (USi) in Annapolis, Md.
Assembling a team to manage your ASP is second in importance only to choosing the ASP itself. Here are some of the key players and responsibilities to consider:
But along the way, the migration hit a glitch, and all external e-mail stopped flowing. Jason Aber, the user services manager at C-bridge, began troubleshooting and notified Tod McFarland, the company's director of architecture and engineering.
McFarland was unable to locate the problem, so he called USi and spoke with the engineers there.
The discussions escalated. Soon McFarland was brainstorming with USi's senior architecture engineers. Through trial and error, they tracked the problem to the routers and were able to restore e-mail functionality.
"It was a pretty major problem that could have resulted in an e-mail outage," says Ralph Rodriguez, vice president and CIO at C-bridge. "They had it done in half an hour."
What accounts for such a quick fix of a complex technology problem? Rodriguez is quick to point to USi's "willingness to be our IT department, not just our ASP."
It definitely takes both sides to make an ASP relationship succeed. That's why Rodriguez also credits McFarland with having just the right mix of skills to be an excellent frontman for managing the ASP.
Key IT personnel to help maintain your ASP relationship
The CIO: ASP selection, SLA and contract development
PROJECT MANAGER, technology side: ASP selection, system viability, architecture compatibility, SLA adherence, troubleshooting, problem escalation, cost containment
PROJECT MANAGER, business side: ASP selection, business viability, SLA adherence, troubleshooting, problem escalation
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: ASP selection, system viability, architecture compatibility, SLA adherence, troubleshooting, problem escalation, cost containment
END-USER REPRESENTATIVE: Process development for problem notification, ensuring that user needs are met
HELP DESK REPRESENTATIVE: First-level support, problem escalation, troubleshooting
"Originally, [McFarland] did not want to open up a security hole, and IT guys always want to manage their own stuff," Rodriguez says. "It was through understanding where we are going as a business and working with USi that he changed his mind."
When a firm signs up with an ASP to host an application or a portion of its internal operations, it's not enough to choose the right service provider. The customer also has to assemble the right team to work with the ASP.
Exactly who should be on that team varies, depending on the makeup of the company and IT department, as well as the exact nature of the ASP relationship. For example, the ASP might be hosting the company's IT operations or one or more applications. Furthermore, the applications might be mission-critical or nonstrategic.
In smaller companies, a help desk representative or end user might be the main ASP liaison. Bigger companies might deploy a larger team including an IT project manager, an end-user representative and the CIO.
In any event, it's safe to say that at many firms, the team is made up of a project manager from the business or technology side, a director of operations, an end-user manager, a help desk representative and the CIO.
But more important than title are the attributes of the people involved and a full understanding of the responsibilities of the job.
"The ideal customer is one who understands the ASP business, is technically savvy and has excellent communication skills, so we can react appropriately," says Ajeeth Jaganneth, practice director at USi.
Project management skills are also important. "A good project manager will get us involved in the early stages to determine risks, while other folks would give us a call the day before [they wanted something changed] and say, 'We need to get this done tomorrow,' " Jaganneth said.
At C-bridge, Rodriguez himself headed up the team that chose USi early last year. His intent was to off-load a nonstrategic function from his 20-member IT staff.
But Rodriguez says he felt it was important to have McFarland, as director of engineering, as well as Aber, as manager of user services, also involved in the decision.
"They needed to understand what USi was promising so they could ask their specific questions in addition to my 10,000-foot ones," says Rodriguez. For example, how would USi be reached - directly or through a virtual private network tunnel? How was its security architecture? How would outages be handled?
"The director of engineering has to browbeat the provider to find out the score," Rodriguez says.
The ability to effectively browbeat may require a customer to have intimate knowledge of the hosted application, as Rodriguez and his team did with Exchange. But if such knowledge doesn't exist, "it's critical to have a great relationship with the ASP, from both the business and technical sides," he warns.
Core for Best Practices
In either case, it's a good idea to pull together a team of people representing both technical and business concerns. At Ingersoll-Rand Co., a $9 billion diversified industrial manufacturer based in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., a four-person team heads up ASP relationships.
ASPs are a core piece of Ingersoll-Rand's goals of following consistent best practices across the company, reusing IT assets and conducting rapid technology implementations.
"For years, we've been doing one-off implementations to solve our business problems," explains Robert Orshaw, vice president of technology at the company.
Now, he says, the company has formed a global technology organization set up with best-practices leaders who consult with the individual business units to create Internet-based systems to solve business problems. Rather than manage these systems internally, the company will use ASPs to host the applications.
For example, when Club Car Inc. moved to a new sales model, it needed call center and sales force automation systems to support it. Normally, the Augusta, Ga.-based division of Ingersoll-Rand would have used a business consultant to implement the needed systems. Instead, Orshaw's group worked with the unit to select some core modules from San Mateo, Calif.-based Siebel Systems Inc., to be hosted by Corio Inc., an ASP based in San Carlos, Calif.
"It will be a six-month project rather than a three-year one," Orshaw says. Plus, the company can reuse the applications in another business unit.
The team at Ingersoll-Rand that interfaces with Corio includes a process owner from the business unit, who ensures that business needs are met; a local IT project manager, who ensures that the system is viable and services are being delivered properly; and a project manager from the centralized technology organization, who ensures that reuse and best-practices principles are adhered to.
Once the project is implemented, the local IT organization provides ongoing support and is responsible for calling Corio if a problem can't be solved. The local IT manager makes sure the service-level agreements (SLA) are adhered to.
"It would be nice if [that person] had previous experience managing an outsourcing provider, so that they're familiar with SLAs and change procedures so you don't have huge scope creep," Orshaw says. "I would put project management skills as No. 1, managing providers as No. 2 and technical ability as No. 3," in terms of important skills, he adds.
ASP SLAs
Understanding SLAs is an important ingredient for any company using an ASP. It shouldn't just be left to the legal department. The director or CIO should also review the contract to be sure it aligns with how the department functions as a business.
"USi has done a good job with the cookie-cutter SLA, but I wanted my own version of customer intimacy," Rodriguez says. "For example, some people like automatically renewing contracts, while others don't."
"The person who manages [our ASP relationship] has to understand that we're a service organization and manage accordingly," agrees Kirk Brauch, director of technology at Myfujifilm.com, a subsidiary of Hanover Park, Ill.-based Fuji Photo Film USA. Myfujifilm is using Conshohocken, Pa.-based Breakaway Solutions Inc. to monitor and manage the site, which provides Web-based file proofing and e-mail notification.
"When you get down to the nitty-gritty of 'Did we respond in five minutes?' and the ramifications of that, it takes someone who understands contract issues," Brauch says.
But in the end, the relationship is everything, and that means you need to have people on the team who are capable of being strong partners.
"It comes back to trust," Brauch says. "Guys like me don't like giving up control. You've got to do strenuous due diligence to be sure these people understand your business and that they've got the technical and financial wherewithal to handle it. You're only as strong as your weakest link."
Additionally, the application is usually hosted in a secure facility - so secure that not even a CIO can walk into it. "It's almost like Mission: Impossible," Brauch says. "You have to be totally confident that the ASP knows what they're doing."
So, more than having any technical expertise, the people managing the ASP need to be good communicators. "It's all about negotiations - 'Is it our problem or their problem?' " Rodriguez says. "Your classic engineer would be a terrible person to have on the phone."
Bottom line: The ASP relationship is a project, Brauch says. "It never stops," he says. "Once it's launched, it continually evolves."
Brandel is a freelance writer in Newton, Mass.
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