The traditional logic of business IT is being challenged through the uptake of new technologies in the workplace, which is leading to improved functionality and outsourcing, it has been claimed.
Dr Mark Thompson of the Cambridge Judge Business School noted in his latest podcast that the advent of open source operations has led to the development of partitioned processes that can easily be shifted within an organisation or outsourced to other service providers.
He commented: "The reason it is revolutionary is that if I can chop up an HR function, a finance function, rather than outsourcing the whole lot what I can do is distinguish between the utility and the commodity elements of that function, the more regular process parts of it, from the riskier parts of it."
This has the benefits of giving firms the opportunity to reduce their in-house IT costs, while ensuring that high-risk functions are handled by professionals outside the company. This means staff can be more focused on the work that will actually raise profitability for a business, rather than undertaking the tedious IT maintenance programmes that have so often had to be endured in the past.
He noted that this practice is "absolutely revolutionary" as for the first time, process-heavy systems can be split into smaller parts to be managed by separate organisations, giving firms a greater freedom to innovate as they are less involved with managing their own IT requirements.
Mr Thompson's comments follow those of managing director of UK-based modular evaporative coolers company EcoCooling.org Alan Beresford, who recently claimed that the uptake of virtual environments in IT solutions can be an excellent way for firms to boost data reliability and reduce costs at the same time.
He argued: "Why have half a dozen one-amp racks churning away, when you might get away with one full of efficient, high-capacity, modern equipment which is virtualised?"
Posted by John Edwards