Sourcing application maintenance
services has significant cost associated with it and thus needs careful
analysis and planning before coming up with the sourcing strategy. The basic
question to be answered here is whether to have the in-house team or an
external partner handle the application maintenance works. Most organizations
will go for an external partner for handling the application maintenances
because it drives down the capital cost. An alternative used in a few
enterprises is to have an internal as well an external team handle maintenance.
Here, applications with sensitive data will be maintained by the in-house team
while the rest will be handled by the external/sourced team.
The major benefits of sourcing
application maintenance services include:
- Cost The inherent infrastructure cost can be reduce by opting for an external service provided
- SkillsThe in-house team may not be skilled enough to handle all the aspect of the enterprise application and as such training and maintaining resources would not be cost efficient and thus logical
- LabourHaving an in-house team means increasing the workforce and hiring contractors or service providers which reduces the maintenance efforts for human resources
- ConsistencyA sourced team will always be under constant competition to deliver the best of results and as such will deliver consistent results when and where necessary.
Application maintenance services
offered by different providers will have different value proposition. It is up
to the CIOs to choose the right form of engagement for their organization and
so the benefits can vary from organization to organization. It should be the
decision of the top management to invest with the right partners for the job.
