When clients raise the question of the security of an outsourced service, it’s frequently a proxy for the feeling that they can trust/have control over their own people, but don’t really trust the service provider’s personnel. This type of concern showed up in a recent survey of CFOs conducted on behalf of SunGard Availability Services, more than half (56%) of those polled said they are concerned about the idea of outsourcing the management of their IT infrastructure due to the perceived security risks. According to the survey, the responding executives’ fears are exacerbated by high profile media stories about third party IT outages or data losses – with 45% of the respondents confessing that such cases make them more inclined to keep their data in-house, despite the cost implications.
When these concerns come up in an outsourcing deal, it’s helpful to consider the current risk profile of the company and whether the company’s systems and data are actually more secure in their current environment with their current staff, or if it’s just the perception of loss of control that is making the executives feel that way.
There are, of course, risks associated with allowing your data and applications to sit somewhere else and be operated on by someone else, and some of these risks become more pronounced when you are operating in a cloud-based environment with little assurance about the physical location of your data. However, these risks can be managed both contractually and procedurally and have to be evaluated in the overall context of the business.
Sourcing Speak
