Outsourcing Hosting: Talking Points for the C-Suite (Part II)

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

We are often asked, “How do I make the case to upper management that outsourced hosting of our mission-critical data and apps is the way to go?”

Outsourcing Hosting
If you are considering outsourcing your hosting, you may need to prepare some talking points for your C-suite executives.

First, because many businesses rely upon their Web site as their primary public face and their IT infrastructure as their office backbone, Internet downtime is simply not an option. “Always on” is mission-critical to business performance.

Next, if you are dealing with aging IT assets, growing application portfolios to manage, or capital spending cuts due to the economy, then you are like most businesses evaluating hosting solutions for your mission-critical data and applications, and we can help guide you through that process.  IT departments everywhere are finding it’s tough to do more with the same or even less staff.  That’s why hosting has major appeal.   It minimizes your operational risk exposure, makes your business more efficient and agile, and knocks down the high fixed cost of IT.

Here are some talking points to consider:

Better—Hosting decreases your risk

  • Frees up your capital for other projects
  • Guarantees you’re always online (with a 100% Service Level Agreement)
  • Helps you avoid poor server purchasing decisions
  • Offers complete scalability, freeing you to upgrade your server or capacity without service interruption
  • Deploys your solution rapidly and provides expert monitoring, 24x7x365
  • Allows you to focus on growing your business by managing operational and strategic risks that you would not be able to handle in the event of a catastrophic loss

Faster—Hosting extends your resources

  • Cuts your labor/staff training costs to stay ahead of the technology curves
  • Enables you to tap more expert talent, faster and for less cost
  • Allows your people to focus on core business needs that accelerate business growth
  • Provides instant staffing for the “what if” scenario that may occur
  • Improves your access to new technologies while eliminating the need to hire more expertise
  • Offers increased flexibility, so that your IT can be more agile and move as the business does

Cheaper—Hosting delivers the best dollar value

  • Delivers consistent, affordable IT coverage 24x7x365 with virtually no downtime
  • Eliminates big capital expenditures on hardware and data centers
  • Frees up your IT budget and staff for other strategic initiatives
  • Enables you to better predict monthly IT costs and therefore reallocate precious resources
  • Grows with you as you grow—at the same superior service level and without requiring you to over-purchase capacity upfront
  • Provides a quicker return on your investment that’s provable

Clearly, just how much you improve your risk management and exposure, efficiency, and cost savings depends on the hosting provider that you select.

We can help you draft your internal proposal or determine honestly how—and if—your company would benefit from hosting serviceseither traditional or in the cloud. Contact us!

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