Outsourcing Contracts Increase Focus on Security

Officials from BT Group, PLC announced that the company signed an outsourcing deal with CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. In other news, Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. was awarded a $41 million outsourcing contract, while experts from Deloitte Development LLC found that companies that are looking at outsourcing have increased their focus on security as a key element in their outsourcing contracts.

Focal Points:

• BT Group representatives recently announced that it had signed a data center outsourcing dealt with CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. Officials said this was the first IT outsourcing contract for BT is the Asia Pacific region. The contract calls for BT to maintain and upgrades CLSA's data center. Work to be done includes upgrading CLSA hardware and software, adding new uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and cooling, as well as having an on-site team for 24 x 7 management. In order to strengthen BT's regional capabilities, officials further stated that BT was in negotiations to purchase the Singapore-based company Frontline Technologies Corp Ltd.
• Officials from ACS recently announced that ACS signed a contract with Parkland Hospital to provide IT Outsourcing services for $41 million. The contract is for seven years, and includes asset tracking, data center operations, help desk support, network monitoring and management. Officials said the work include implementing a network-based disaster recovery (DR) solution that will increase the security of critical online data. The DR site is designed to reduce the time to recover Parkland's data, which will comply with the latest regulatory guidelines.
• Consultants from Deloitte that focus on security recently published findings that enterprise IT executives are increasing their focus on security elements of IT outsourcing contracts. With the increased public visibility of security exposures, IT executives are getting more concerned about any possible exposures to IT systems, especially those that are being managed by outside agencies. When negotiating on contracts, officials often agree on least-common-denominator services to save money. This can be a critical mistake when it comes to security provisions outsourcers agree to follow.

Experton Group believes security will continue to increase in importance as a key IT metric. While outsourcing will continue to focus on commoditized operations, those commoditized operations still need to be done in a secure fashion. With the increasing visibility of security break-ins, IT executives need to increase the emphasis on the ability of outsourcing partners to guarantee the security of their operations. In addition, providers need to show what actions will be taken to mitigate risk in the event of a security event, and how they will prove to customers appropriate actions are being taken and security standards are being met.