Remote DBA Benefits Comparison Series- Cost Reduction
Introduction
I’ve been working in the IT profession for close to 30 years now. In virtually all facets related to database administration, I’ve had the good fortune of performing a fairly varied set of tasks for my employers over the last couple of decades.
During my tenure at a couple of very large, international organizations, I’ve been a decision maker and purchaser of remote database administration services. I’ve also been a provider of these same services. I held the position of Director of Service Delivery Operations for RDX, the leading global remote DBA and data infrastructure services provider, for a dozen years. My years of experience are currently pretty evenly balanced – about 15 years “on both sides of the fence” as a provider and purchaser.
Customers that come to RDX are often comparing us to other remote services providers or they are considering hiring additional in-house personnel or onsite consultants. The intent of this series is to allow readers to better understand the benefits that remote services providers like RDX offer and compare and contrast them to in-house personnel or onsite consultants. Since I’ve held positions in all three of these options (employee, consultant, and an Oracle remote database administrator), I have a strong understanding of the alternatives.
In part 1, we will discuss the cost reduction benefits companies see when utilizing a remote DBA services provider in comparison to hiring in-house personnel or onsite consultants.
Cost Reduction
You’ll see numerous industry pundits profess a multitude of opinions on the cost reduction benefits of outsourcing. Articles and blogs range from “Outsourcing Leads to Dramatic Cost Reductions” to “Uncover the Hidden Costs of Outsourcing” to “Outsourcing – It’s no longer about Costs,” a pretty confusing array of opinions that often complicate the buyer’s decision-making process.
Outsourcing isn’t just about costs anymore, but cost reduction is, and will always be a critical comparison point. Companies employing a remote services provider don’t incur the expenses related to recruiting, screening, onboarding and retaining in-house staff. Organizations don’t need to contribute to our personnel’s health, dental, eye care, life insurance, long/short-term disability, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, 401k retirement plans, etc…
Customers evaluating in-house versus remote staffing have to factor all costs into the comparison, including HR, legal and administrative overhead costs that are incurred throughout the employee lifecycle. The service provider is responsible for all of those expenses. Customers only need to pay the hourly rate, not all of the overhead associated with a FTE (full-time equivalent).
In addition, remote services personnel don’t require equipment. Our folks come “fully equipped” with cell phones, desk phones, computers, and the necessary peripherals. There is no need to provide desks, office supplies, voice and data communications as well as a hopefully comfortable office space environment that includes lighting, heat, air conditioning, and water. When you are hiring a full-time employee, you also have to factor in vacations, holidays, sick days and training costs. Our personnel come pre-trained and are required to be experts in all of the latest advanced database features.
Employee expenses are still just one facet of the cost comparison. Employees and onsite consultants don’t come prepackaged with the advanced toolsets that remote service delivery providers offer. For example, RDX’s support specialists are backed by a robust service delivery engine that includes industry-leading software packages such as Secret Server’s password vault for secure credential storage, our enterprise monitoring platform for robust, end-to-end enterprise monitoring and ServiceNow for work requests and timekeeping. All of our service offerings provide customers with access to our software packages as well as the monitoring and problem resolution services provided by our 24x7x365 Database Operations Center.
One hourly rate covers administrative services, our Database Operations Center that is fully staffed around-the-clock as well as access to ServiceNow, RDX’s enterprise monitoring platform and a host of other high-end software pages.
Wrap-up Thanks for reading. In part 2 of this series, we’ll discuss the continuity of service and support flexibility benefits remote DBA service providers offer customers.