Technological Solutions and their Essence in Back Sourcing

Technological Solutions and their Essence in Back Sourcing

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Technological Solutions and their Essence in Back Sourcing

Pontin recognized that there has been a visible decline in transformational innovations. Pontin still maintains that the capability of technological solutions is resolving big problems persist (2013). However, the technological solution ought to reflect various key characteristics. Public and respective governance has to have consensus on the criticality of a given problem, institution support must be present, the problem has to be technological, and an in-depth comprehension of said issue is necessary. The narrative runs true in the Information and technology sector. In a bid to cut costs concomitantly increase profits majority of IT companies outsourced their various activities. Despite outsourcing proving to be immune to short-term economic fluctuation, it has proved to be an organizational nightmare. It follows that a recent trend reversing the above innovation is commonplace. It organizations are leading the return of operations in-house to streamline organizational procedures. For the practice to be efficient financial backing should be adequate. As Potin points out the issue with recent ideas such as outsourcing is that it focuses on trivialities at the expenses of the bigger picture. The core issue of these firms’ practices was organizational inadequacy. Rather than address said problem, these IT firms opted for a cheaper alternative. Recognizing the error of the ways, they have realized that fixing their in-house organization will have more enduring results and larger results. Pontin’s ideas prove relevant in aiding MediaCorp build IT hosting Services and ITServCorp move to return product development in house. The technological solutions demand a change of perspective in regards to shorter spending.

The external market dynamics has shifted requiring a change in priorities. Having IT facilities in house is no longer a commodity issue rather it defines an organizations strategy. It follows that a short-term compromise of commercial value is worth it relative to the long-term in house technological competencies accrued. Following Pontin’s ideas, both the market forces and the internal governance recognize the essence of building technological capabilities in streamlining long-term capabilities (2013). For instance, the MediaCorp CEO’s and employees alike ought to recognize personal and organizational development emanating from the above move. As MediaCorp already possessed IT infrastructure, outsourcing the SAP servers amounted to underutilization and demotivation of its workforce (Kotlarsky & Bognar, 2012). The process of moving the SAP services was sensitive as a risk of financial loss was present. If the SAP services were to be disrupted during the transition from TechCorp, the predicted cost effectiveness would be nullified. However, a view of the bigger picture enabled them to shift their focus on the negatives.

A firm must have an in-depth comprehension of the problem. Backsourcing forces an organization to think critically about the underlying issues and their possible solutions. Often outsourcing amounts to transferring technological problems to an external organization rather than confronting them (Kotlarsky & Bognar, 2012). The external firm has neither significant economies of scale nor the urgencies to resolve the problems. It follows that the vendor performed substandard work. However, the organization must act as one unit. ITServCorp overestimated the complexity of the API mainframe-programming central to technological development and IndianITCorp’s grasp of it. IndianITCorp may not have known the investment in training IT specialists and criticality of project specifications, hence downplayed them. One cannot resolve problems they do not understand. Agreement of the entire organization on the criticality of the change is necessary (Pontin, 2013). For technological solution to manifest its gains opposition from the management must be absent. The architects of the solution should not act as rogue agents when the rest of the organization perceives there are pressing issues to be resolved.

References

Kotlarsky, J., & Bognar, L. (2012). Understanding the process of backsourcing: two cases of process and product backsourcing in Europe. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 2(2), 79-86.

Pontin, Jason. (2013). Can technology solve our big problems? TEDtalks. Retrieved 27 November 2015. https://www.ted.com/talks/jason_pontin_can_technology_solve_our_big_problems/transcript?language=en#t-355825-