OUTSOURCING CONSIDERATIONS

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Outsourcing Considerations
Some difficult issues that companies face when choosing a provider of application packaging services are:

1. Hidden Costs — In cases where pricing is done on a per application basis, careful consideration must be given to how an application is defined. For instance, applications are broken up into pieces and charged separately. Costs can quickly escalate from original estimates.
2. Onsite Coordinator — Will an onsite process flow coordinator be provided by the outsourcer as part of the original contract?
3. Personnel — Many outsourcing vendors, in an effort to increase margins, put inexperienced consultants with minimal skills and experience on teams. Will the client have input into personnel selections?
4. Team Capabilities — Outsourcing vendors are seldom willing to package all applications submitted by the client for packaging. What criteria does your vendor utilize to determine if an application can be packaged or not?
5. Packaging Environment — Outsourcing vendors often package in a plain vanilla environment that does not accurately replicate the customer’s environment. This will often cause application failure when packages are delivered to the client. In a lockdown environment, every application being deployed to the user base needs careful design to ensure it can be installed effortlessly and failure free. This is especially so when using advanced distribution and deployment systems like Microsoft SMS.
6. Geopolitical Issues — Are your outsourcing vendors going to provide services from locations in countries such as India, China, or Russia, where there are cultural, communication, timing, and infrastructure issues that could result in delays and failures?

Process Improvements
Gartner and IDC estimate that each year IT departments with poorly managed and outdated application packaging processes are wasting approximately $1,500,000 for every thousand desktops in their organization. If you aren’t sure if your IT team is following the latest application packaging best practices — or don’t know
what these best practices are — you are putting your organization at risk.

Element IS Consulting Service consultants have been providing application packaging assessment services to many Fortune 500 companies for the past five years. It is the first and most important step in implementing or improving your application packaging environment.

While the quality and speed of the work being done have been recognized by our past clients, our goal is to continually improve upon the defined process, while adhering to corporate standards in order to increase productivity and the client’s ROI.

Summary
Element IS Consulting Service is uniquely positioned to deliver outstanding application packaging services structured to your business needs and technical environment. Our years of experience have given us in-depth knowledge of application packaging technologies and methods. By utilizing our expertise in Windows Installer technologies, we have a track record of producing quality packages with high stability and reliability, thereby reducing help desk support costs.

Element IS Consulting Service offers flexible application packaging solutions to meet our clients’ needs. Additionally, we offer flexible outsourcing solutions — from providing consultants to supplement existing staff to complete remote packaging solutions. Whatever your application packaging needs, we have the knowledge and experience to ensure your success.