Category: Support & Managed Services

With IT budgets around the world coming under pressure as the global economy continues to struggle, finding ways to reduce costs will always be attractive to businesses.

One option is to invest in an outsourced IT model, which can provide greater flexibility, agility and expertise – as well as, of course, offering the potential to slash expenditure.

Sten Stovall, writing a piece for the Wall Street Journal, has chosen two pharmaceutical companies that he believes illustrate the difference between an outsourced approach and an in-house strategy.

While GlaxoSmithKline chooses to retain many of its operations, AstraZeneca has gone down the outsourcing path.

Mr Stovall noted that analysts believe the latter's strategy could pay off. With several patents on leading medicines due to expire, the company must invest many of its resources in finding new drugs that become successful. By outsourcing, it could be freeing up more cash to pay for this.

India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee recently told how outsourcing is crucial to the economies of many countries around the world, reported the Press Trust of India.

Posted by Shannon Wells