How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) Executive Summary

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1 How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) Executive Summary Publication Date: 2 January 2004

2 Author Bruce M. Caldwell This document has been published to the following Marketplace codes: ITSV-WW-EX-0397 For More Information... In North America and Latin America: In Europe, the Middle East and Africa: In Asia/Pacific: In Japan: Worldwide via gartner.com: Entire contents 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice

3 How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) Introduction Aside from the number of digits to the left of the decimal point, what are the differences between large and small IT infrastructure outsourcing contracts? Someoftheanswersmaysurpriseyou.TheUserWantsandNeedsreport examines the differences and similarities between deals at opposite ends of the contract value spectrum. To determine end-user wants and needs, Gartner Dataquest surveyed 112 U.S. organizations that outsource or plan to outsource IT infrastructure management. The survey was conducted in the second quarter of 2003, with high-level results reported in "Evaluating the IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Landscape," ITSV-WW-DP-0514 published 23 June The referenced report provides a more in-depth view of the findings divided into two categories based on the dollar value of the respondents' largest contracts: Those with the largest contract of less than $1 million Those with largest contract worth $1 million or more In addition to the results in the report, the survey generated data useful for analysis of the small and midsize business (SMB) market, as well as desktop outsourcing; see "SMBs Seek 'High Touch' From Infrastructure Outsourcing Vendors," ITOU-WW-UW-0114, and "What Desktop Outsourcing Users Really Want," ITOU-WW-UW A companion survey was fielded in Europe, "User Attitudes to IT Outsourcing: Western Europe, 2003," ITOU-WW-UW Topic areas include the following: User demographics by job title, company size and largest contract value Outsourcing attitudes and opinions in general and regarding a new service delivery option Vendor selection criteria Extent of outsourcing activities by infrastructure layer, past, current and future Contract issues, including changes, costs and impact on the enterprise Customer satisfaction criteria and overall rating The report is organized as follows: Chapter 1: Executive summary Chapter 2: Study objectives, definitions, methodology and demographics Chapter 3: IT infrastructure outsourcing opinions Chapter 4: Vendor selection Chapter 5: Scope, Bundling and Pricing Chapter 6: Contract issues Chapter 7: Findings and recommendations Appendix A: Related research Appendix B: Glossary of terms 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 1

4 2 How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) Definitions Survey participants were provided with the following definitions: IT Infrastructure Outsourcing A multiyear contract with a service provider for management (which may include monitoring, maintenance and support) of hardware and network components up to, but not including, the business applications layer. IT infrastructure outsourcing may be included in broader contracts that also provide for applications management and business processes. Transfer of IT employees, facilities and/or assets may also be included in the contract. IT infrastructure outsourcing may also include the following types of services: On-Demand/IT Utility Infrastructure Services These services are characterized by standardized IT solutions platformed on vendor-owned and managed IT infrastructures and include servers, storage, remote monitoring and management and messaging. Another key characteristic is that these services do not require configuration and implementation on client-owned assets and do not require the transfer of client-owned assets to the service provider. They often have some element of usage-based, on-demand billing to meet dynamic, flexible configuration or capacity requirements of clients, and are offered via the network. Grid computing Grid technology distributes computing jobs and databases across multiple servers, harnessing their combined processing power and dedicating it to a single computational superprocess. In essence, the needs of the processing job itself determine what kind of processing horsepower, bandwidth and storage it will require, then allocates them to itself according to what is available on the grid's work scheduling roster. While customarily considered a means to share access to supercomputer/highly parallel computer power for academic or scientific research, grid computing is developing as a means to optimize IT infrastructure operations by maximizing capacity utilization. Thus, grid computing may become a foundation for internal IT infrastructures as well as for IT infrastructure service providers. Key Findings Key findings and trends regarding North American IT infrastructure outsourcing user wants and needs are summarized as follows: Future outsourcing activity will be nearly twice as great among enterprises with largest contract values of less than $1 million than among those with largest contract values of $1 million or more. Large deal or small, end users expect a great deal of attention. Enterprises with largest contract values of $1 million or more agree most strongly that their outsourcers should be strategic business partners; enterprises with smaller contracts agree most strongly that they want to make certain they are one of the most important, if not the most important, client of the outsourcer. Technical abilities, responsiveness to change, physical and network security and financial stability are leading criteria for vendor selection. Enterprises with small deals feel much more positive toward outsourcers that either make application software or that make end-to-end solutions than do enterprises with large deals Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 January 2004

5 How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) 3 WAN transport is the most extensively outsourced environment in both small and large deals. After that, outsourcing penetration of environment diverges by the size of the deal. Enterprises with large deals focus on the mainframe and help desk, while enterprises with small deals emphasize servers and on-premise voice and data equipment. Aside from bundling of services for infrastructure environments, remote monitoring and management is the service most commonly bundled with IT infrastructure outsourcing, followed by consulting among those with large deals and development and integration (D&I) among those with small deals. Strong agreement exists among both large- and small-deal respondents that selective outsourcing is the most effective sourcing strategy, while most disagreed that comprehensive outsourcing is effective. Savings produced by outsourcing may be going straight to the corporate bottom line instead of being invested in new systems and transformation and alignment of IT with business. Survey respondents fear this may not change during the next two years. Two of the most significant findings of the survey are regarding the adoption of IT utility or on-demand services (see Figure 1), and the extent that new and additional IT infrastructure is deployed as part of the outsourcing contract (see Figure 2). About half of all large-deal respondents and 41 percent of all small-deal respondents answered the question about whether their contracts involved IT utility or on-demand services. Based on those numbers, 28 percent of the large-deal respondents and 13 percent of the small-deal respondents indicated their contracts do have some IT utility or on-demand aspect. Deployment of new systems as part of an outsourcing agreement has been one of the most significant developments in outsourcing in the past five years. This is the heart of on-demand and IT utility computing. Enterprises save the time and expense of designing, procuring, developing and deploying new systems. The risks associated with new system deployment are passed on to outsourcers. This expansion of the outsourcer's role from keeper of the old legacy systems to deployer of new systems has evolved from the periodic requirements as with the spread of desktop computing, client-server and the Internet to become an ongoing requirement for the growth and continuous optimization of the IT infrastructure. For the full report, see "How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing," ITOU-WW-UW Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 January 2004

6 4 How Deal Size Matters in IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (Executive Summary) Figure 1 IT Utility and On-Demand by Environment Server Storage Help Desk Small-Deal Group Large-Deal Group Desktop/Client WAN Transport Mainframe Midrange On-Premise (Voice and Data) None Percentage of Respondents Notes: Multiple responses allowed Number of small-deal respondents = 28 Number of large-deal respondents = 14 Source: Gartner Dataquest (June 2003) Figure 2 Asset Dispositions in Outsourcing Contracts Small-Deal Group New and Additional Outsourced Infrastructure Services Deployed Transfer of Computer Hardware Assets to Vendor Transfer of Employees to Vendor Employee Layoffs Large-Deal Group Transfer of Physical Facilities to Vendor Percentage of Respondents Notes: Multiple responses allowed Number of small-deal respondents = 68 Number of large-deal respondents = 29 Source: Gartner Dataquest (June 2003) 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 January 2004