Messaging is not the core competency of most companies, yet it is a fundamental business requirement that demands tremendous time and resources to manage. Outsourcing removes the headache of email administration from the internal IT staff, freeing up those resources to focus on IT initiatives that directly relate to the company’s core business.

A secondary benefit of allowing IT staff to dedicate their time to more strategic projects is improved retention and recruiting. Typically, top IT talent does not want the responsibility for the routine and time consuming maintenance chores required to run a messaging system. So, the outsourcing of these tasks should minimize the ever-present challenge of finding and keeping qualified IT personnel.

Suggestions

Companies that should consider the option of taking a managed messaging solution fall into

Three main camps:

Those running old versions of email systems. The main platform presenting headaches to companies is Microsoft Exchange 5.5. Whilst Microsoft has extended support for this version of Exchange to December 2004, there are many good reasons to plan a migration from Exchange 5.5 before this date. However the upgrade to Exchange 2003 (or 2000) is complicated by the need to implement Active Directory and for companies with more than one site, the issues surrounding the lack of co-existence of different versions of Exchange mean that a “big bang” approach is their only, albeit high risk, option.

A managed messaging solution provides both a short-term and long-term solution here. In the short-term, having a specialist who has done this many times before build a new messaging system externally (in a new Active Directory forest) and migrate users to this is both relatively simple and also provides for a failsafe rollback option of turning the old system back on if needed.

Those seeking to migrate to a new messaging system. Replacing one messaging system with another is an involved and complicated task – challenging if undertaken internally. By building the new system outside the company using a managed messaging specialist, the new system can be built to best practice standards, trial migrations undertaken and contingency plans created easily. Internal staff can move to more strategic roles, identifying user requirements and acting proactively, rather than having to react constantly to user requests for support.

Those with downtime issues. As has been discussed above, downtime saps the company’s ability to generate revenue. If a company is experiencing downtime, having an external company take on the management of the email system will have an immediate positive effect. It will also give the IT department time to focus on the core business systems which experience shows will also be suffering.

Summary

There are compelling reasons to consider the option of outsourcing all or part of a company’s email system. However, the most often cited reason, to save money, is most often not the best one. Saving money tends to be used as a justification once the decision to outsource has been made.

The primary drivers for giving up the management of a corporate email system to a managed messaging provider are:

To eradicate downtime issues.

To secure the email system and users from viruses, spam and inappropriate content.

To avoid the capital costs of upgrading or replacing email systems.

To benefit from specialist skills in running an email system.

To gain competitive advantage where IT is used aggressively.

To release IT staff to focus on core systems.

To comply with legal requirements for email retention and user monitoring.