Amid stories of doom and gloom, it was refreshing to see analyst firm Gartner’s recent report that outsourcing deals in IT are on the up. Companies today are clearly eager to remove the cost of operating IT whilst maintaining service levels. Moreover, this outlook proves how outsourcers can continue to add value by delivering innovative business processes.

Whilst clients have reaped the rewards of outsourcing traditional IT, very few have managed to realise the benefits of the latest mobile technologies. Mobile email is probably the most common example seen within many businesses today, though the plethora of ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions on the market prevents outsourcers from providing any value in this field.

But there are other fields where off-the-shelf falls flat. More precisely, ‘field services’ workers such as maintenance engineers and delivery drivers who can benefit from mobile IT. Here mobile email is more a hindrance than a help. Can you imagine a courier typing out an individual email to record deliveries to the hundreds of addresses they visit daily?

There are a range of applications such as CRM databases that field workers access but IT departments struggle to ‘mobilise’. This is because IT departments’ experience with mobile technologies is limited, and field applications are more complex. Another challenge is the fact that most field service organisations have unique business processes, which prevent any radical changes taking place. This means technology needs to be designed around the workers, not the other way around.

Adapting highly complex technologies to extremely diverse working cultures is like eating soup with a fork. Nonetheless, there is a desire for mobility within field workforces. In a recent report from Aberdeen Group, 95% of companies said mobility was important to their field service operations.

Unlike previous technology cycles, outsourcers can still make an early impact and lead this new era of business transformation. As I’ve already alluded, most companies lack the experience to build or manage mobile infrastructures. And with a variety of new vendors to co-ordinate, outsourcing these relationships removes any potential management headaches.

During this period of uncertainty, the best path is to scale mobile IT on an as needed basis rather than shoulder up front expenditures in areas such as mobile devices. Outsourcing can again lend itself to this approach by allowing clients to adopt an Opex friendly subscription model.

’Mobile Sourcing’ can add an entirely new dimension to client value, and offer outsourcers better-protected revenues than simply competing at the commodity end of the market for desktop PC services.