Martin Molloy, Principal Consultant, Information Technology Advisory, Europe and Asia Pacific

Eighty-two percent of all organisations participating in this year’s UK study have outsourced part, or all of their Infrastructure Management and as such it is the most mature IT outsourcing process.

2010 may become cited as the year when cloud computing finally reached the mainstream outsourcing market. Throughout the year, customer demand for IT services delivered from the cloud increased, and this is set to continue in 2011 and beyond. This shift in the way IT services are being purchased and consumed represents both challenges and opportunities. For the large heritage infrastructure providers, the opportunity exists to build on existing customer relationships and experiences in creating a true cloud offering.

In cloud computing, scale is critical and significantly, the large heritage service providers in IT infrastructure already have this scale. The challenge is how existing contracts can be moved to cloud-based services without a serious disruption to, or destruction of, revenue. For the newer entrants to the infrastructure market, such as the Indian-based service providers (in the 2010 study three Indian service providers are included in the Infrastructure ranking compared to only one in 2009), the opportunity exists to build a catalogue of appropriate services from scratch. Their challenge is how to deliver the full range of services which customers are demanding, including facilities, hardware, security and management – difficult when you don’t already own large facilities such as data centres.

So it’s looking as though 2011 is shaping up to be the year when cloud-based infrastructure deals become the norm – when more and more customers see the value of off-the-shelf, standardised services, delivered on shared platforms. It could also be the year when the issue of security is largely addressed as a major concern. Ultimately, the winners will be service providers which can seize opportunities, address their own specific challenges and really tune in to what services customers want to purchase, both technically and commercially.

The UK IT Service Provider Performance and Satisfaction Study management summary is now available to download.

About the UK IT Service Provider Performance and Satisfaction Study: Each year, EquaTerra undertakes an investigation into organisations’ satisfaction with their outsourcing service providers. This year’s UK study is the most extensive to date, both in terms of the level of participation and the insights gained. More than 220 different organisations participated and evaluated over 660 IT outsourcing contracts with an annual value of £14bn.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Information Technology (IT), Market Trends and News, Outsourcing by EquaTerra