Smith's Information Services is a $2 billion firm with sales in consumer information. It enjoyed high overall growth until fierce competition flattened sales and decreased profits sharply 2 years ago. Since then, corporate cost and overhead reduction efforts were widespread. The CIO was in charge of the data center and has been investigating the possibility of a business process outsourcing project that would move the data center to the cloud.

The data center at Smith's Information Services was created in the mid-1980s and has grown very rapidly. Mainframes were installed first, followed by AS400s, and then servers that were rack mounted. Disk storage, at one time, was at a premium, but has since gone down in price. Cooling for the data center has gone up as more and more servers and disks were installed. This cost, along with the electricity cost to run all of the devices in the data center, has Bob Smith worried that the cost of doing business is getting out of control.

Along with the rising hardware and software costs, the number of employees needed to run this data center has grown considerably. The cost of running a data center 24/7 is becoming rather large, and this is another issue that Bob Smith is concerned about at the moment. The growth potential for the organization is very positive, which means that more data will be stored, which will result in higher costs in all areas of the data center unless cost savings are found.

The CIO has felt that this was coming sooner or later and has already been quietly investigating the idea already. There are many options from which to choose, including a local data center, a well-known data center, and a data center that is located overseas. Each of these solutions has pros and cons, and one big issue is the security of the data. Some of the other issues include service-level agreements that have to be hammered out, HR issues that will deal with the local and remote staff members, and other issues, such as informing or not informing the customer that Smith's Information Services will be outsourcing the data somewhere.

Generate the presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint. All sources including the eBook need to be cited in your presentation, including links to relevant websites. You need to help management quickly understand your recommendation and the steps that you'll undertake for contracting. Presentation audio should be recorded on your slides. Make sure to review the rubric for the presentation to understand the required sections (Design, Delivery, Business Content, Technical Content, Wrap-Up).

Design: Flow, slide usage, and other items on the appearance and construction of the presentation
Delivery: Presenters speaking, clarity, sound quality, and confidence; length is also considered
Business content: Convincing presentation of business benefits of recommendation
Technical content: Clear presentation of appropriate, nondetailed technical information
Wrap-Up:Closure and wrap-up (must have at least one slide on this); leave your audience with the reasons to support your recommendation