Digitization has brought with it complexity. In order for multi-sourcing to be successful, organizations need to be able to correlate their service providers into one single, cohesive unit. MSI enables the seamless end-to-end management of multiple IT service suppliers, integrating and governing them through one customer-facing IT interface. Achieving this, however, needs extensive groundwork – which is where MSI consultancy comes in, setting out the steps to an effective transformation.
Increasingly complex infrastructures
In the last decade organizations have added huge capacity to their infrastructures. From a CIO's perspective, the technological landscape can now be bewildering. Continuously adding suppliers, more applications, new security layers and data in the cloud all makes for a tangled labyrinth. Managing all these suppliers and multiple service level agreements (SLAs), many of which differ, is an onerous task.
This burdensome management chore inevitably slows down processes. Take new hires in a multinational, for example. Laptops are ordered for their starting dates, and they are left wondering why they come piecemeal. First the hardware, then the apps and then the various sign-on notifications. Approvals have to be raised from different places and different people, creating a web of inefficiencies. MSI could provide a supercharged user experience, getting the new hires operational in ten minutes as opposed to a week. But a properly thought out MSI strategy has to be put in place to achieve this. This can be made easier with the help of consultancy.
The first building block to change
In order to assess MSI maturity, organizations need to know where they are coming from and where they want to go. A consultant looks at the current state of an organization's IT environment, decision processes and existing providers. This assessment provides a 360 degree view of an organization's current situation to ensure that whichever road it takes, real benefits will be delivered.
In my experience, some will have done their optimization and are on their journey to MSI; for others, it is a complete change – plugging legacy systems into MSI. By carrying out an audit, we can build a roadmap for the organization, outlining its complexity. There are a lot of work processes to put in place to create the simple, consistent and easy-to-use solution organizations are looking for.
Where are you heading?
The second step involves understanding exactly what the organization wants to achieve. We offer our customers a single management system, ensuring consistency, managing SLAs, single ordering and so on; but to ensure they get the right solution, we need to understand their business objectives.
Different organizations see different outcomes from MSI. Some see MSI and optimization as a cost-saving mechanism. Others want a real boost in the user experience or a compliance improvement. If MSI is going to deliver cost savings, for example, we as consultants have to prove that the end result will provide this or the client will not be happy.
This is where we provide a gap analysis with recommendations and a proposed roadmap. For the gap analysis, we use standard methodology using materials collected from interviews and workshops within the organization. Sometimes this includes an end-user survey, especially in areas such as user experience, for example.
The importance of change management
One element that has become more and more important in our consultancy work is change management. The focus of change management centers around people and how they and the teams they work in can make a shift from the current workspace to the new one.
Change management is vital in explaining to employees the new ways of working, both from an IT user and a business user perspective. New technologies and processes can only benefit the business if employees embrace them. That's why we put a communications plan together and involve human resources where it touches on new training needs.
The outcomes
Consultancy works when an organization is open to working out where it is coming from and where it needs to go. With consultancy, outcomes can be multiple. What is most important is that, following consultancy, the client gets a solution that is compatible with the way their organization works and delivers on their end goals.
Discover more about Multisourcing Service Integration from Orange Business.
Guillaume Freyburger held various senior positions in the Multimedia, Consulting and Telecommunication industry. In his current role, he’s managing the International Consulting Practice for Orange Business, providing support, advice and assistance for large multinational enterprises in their performance improvement and digital transformation processes.
When not working, Guillaume likes pushing his limits in adventurous activities like Marathon du Medoc or adventurous skiing.