Support for outsourcing the IT environment to the cloud
Changes in ICT are rapid and the complexity of ICT is increasing. How do you keep a grip on ICT while innovation is accelerating and more and more work needs to be done to keep up? And how do you ensure that employees can keep up with these developments? For SRK Rechtsbijstand, a foundation that provides independent legal aid on behalf of insurers, these were the challenges it faced. After all, SRK expects more and more from its ICT: higher quality, lower costs and more innovation. In addition, the organization, and therefore its ICT, must meet strict standards in the areas of information security and privacy. From these challenges came the question: realize a sourcing strategy so that SRK can bring its ICT to the market in phases based on well-considered choices.
Back to the core business
SRK provides legal aid for clients of insurers and insurance intermediaries. About 250 specialists, such as lawyers and jurists, provide this legal aid. ICT is playing an increasingly important role in our operations. In the primary process, handling files, good information provision is crucial. Highberg, together with SRK, formulated the objectives and principles that ICT must meet. This revealed that SRK wants to focus on the primary process: providing legal aid. ICT is not a core task but it must be reliable, efficient and in control.
Step by step towards outsourcing
Based on an analysis of the ICT landscape, Highberg and SRK defined various domains from housing (servers and storage) to applications (office automation and business applications). For each domain it was indicated which sourcing form would fit best: continue to do it yourself, outsource, cooperate, or a variant of this. This enabled Highberg to divide the ICT landscape into five clusters, with each cluster having its own route and speed. After all, not everything needs to be outsourced and what you do want to outsource you bring to the market in phases.
SRK as a control organization
Pim SchoutenBeing able to properly manage suppliers of outsourced ICT services requires another way of managing from within the organization. The sourcing strategy has helped SRK to identify this directing function. This can include factors such as demand-supply, service integration and innovation. These concern not so much the content of the ICT services to be outsourced, but relate to the way in which SRK is able to manage and improve the overall ICT services. This makes the organization more agile while keeping a better grip on ICT.
And what did this mean for SRK?
The result of the assignment to Highberg was a sourcing strategy including a plan of action. This has enabled SRK to outsource the ICT in phases and for a large part to the cloud. Wouter van Wijk, director of Finance and ICT at SRK: "This process offers us the opportunity to focus on the primary processes on the one hand and to mitigate ICT risks in a manageable and affordable manner on the other."
Would you like to know more about this case? Please feel free to contact Pim Schouten.