Remote Infrastructure Management: The third wave of outsourcing!

I am publishing extracts of a newline from Nasscom - on the Third wave of Outsourcing !

This would give readers an idea of the potential that is waiting to be tapped in the Indian IT space
 "The third wave of outsourcing is here and it goes by the name of Remote Infrastructure Management. According to the NASSCOM-McKinsey Study 2005, the total addressable market for IT infrastructure offshoring, inclusive of support, network administration and help desk is around US$ 70-85 billion. Other market watchers say it will grow into a bigger business opportunity (of the order of US$80-$150 billion by 2010). Not surprisingly, RIM, is being touted as the third wave of outsourcing!

In a global environment where IT budget escalations are happening slowly, and organizations are having to make the most of what they have, Remote Infrastructure Management is growing in importance. Keen to “focus on their core strengths” and “outsource the rest,” companies are looking at Remote Infrastructure Management to stretch their IT budgets.

“Pressures on IT budgets are leading global organizations to search at avenues beyond ADM services. Clients’ expectation of end-to-end services from vendors along with maturity of offshore vendors is also allowing this trend to build momentum,” stated Priti Rao, Sr. Vice President of Infosys, India’s leading IT services vendor that has leveraged its existing capabilities and loyal customer base in the software development segment to build up steam within the Remote Infrastructure Management space.

HCL, one of the earliest entrants and pioneers in the Remote Infrastructure Management area, and a leading light in this segment, ensures that its customers enjoy an effective, efficient and productive IT infrastructure operation. The company is optimizing its investments in technology, people and processes and guaranteeing greater quality and increased end-user delight through requisite expertize and domain strengths. HCL has also built up robust and mature processes and enhanced visibility tools to establish its pre-eminence within the RIM arena.

RIM, driven by a paucity of in-house capabilities

Remote Infrastructure Management was also appearing on the radar screens of global organizations on account of the fact that companies were not really geared up internally—in terms of well-defined escalation processes, a knowledge base of errors and standard operating procedures—to handle their infrastructure. A number of offshore outsourcing companies on the other hand were using global standard processes like the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) and BS7799 (for security), for better management and problem resolution.

As far as the Indian market is concerned, the country’s leading IT services companies have already forayed the Remote Infrastructure Management domain. They have done so not merely to participate in the huge global RIM business opportunity, but also to provide solutions to a growing number of companies within the domestic market, for Infrastructure Management.

India’s leading IT services companies had therefore built up strengths and capabilities to provide both offshore and on-site infrastructure management encompassing a host of operations.

India on the global RIM map


The emergence of Indian IT services vendors on the RIM has been a result of key trends that have helped define this market. These include the following:

• an improving telecom landscape in India.
• the establishment of credentials of Indian offshore services providers within the global markets.
• the availability of manpower. The Indian IT software and services industry has built up a strong pool of manpower equipped with hardware, software and networking skills. These professionals are available to the growing RIM industry

• investments by vendors.
Typically, Indian organizations such as HCL, Infosys, among others, are offering a range of Infrastructure Management options, including the full spectrum of ITIL-compliant Service Support and Service Delivery Processes. These include :

• End User Computing Services
• Datacenter Services
• Network Services
• Information Security Services
• Business Ready Infrastructure
• Process and Tool Consultancy
• Infrastructure consulting

These services are being delieverd to a range of Industry Verticals such as Banking and Financial Services, Manufacturing, Pharma and Healthcare etc.—to Global/Fortune 500 Corporations.

Challenges facing RIM


“Three key challenges being faced by all RIM service providers are a shortage of skilled manpower in certain technology domains, security concerns by clients and the lack of awareness about the complexity of the work in this space, leading to lower acceptability among the fresh talent pool,” stated Priti Rao of Infosys.

This Shortage is the Opportunity for  Youngsters to get into Infrastructre management as a Career path . The first step would be to obtain International Certifications like CCNA /MCSE/ RHCE/ SCSA etc in addition to  Garduation in Engineering  /Computer Science/IT etc .

pl feel free to write your comments on this