How To Solve The Biggest Problems With IT Outsourcing
Published on 13 May 15
Daniel0
There are numerous costs associated with running a business, but the IT department is by far one of the biggest budget killers. From setting up the infrastructure, to licensing software, to hiring IT staff - there are numerous costs that can prove to be quite problematic, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. However, there’s another way to handle your business’ IT requirements without blowing the budget: outsourcing. Here is a list of the biggest problems IT outsourcing can fix.
Deployment
Setting up an IT infrastructure comes with some serious upfront costs, as there are a whole lot of network components to be bought and set up. And it’s not just the hardware either - all the software can be just as costly as well: you will need licenses for the operating systems, office suites, and pretty much on any other piece of software you will need, on every single machine. Sure, there are some volume licenses, but even so, the costs can go up quite a lot.
If just the thoughts of having to go through all these acquisitions gives you headache, you’ll be relieved to find out that you can cut down these costs significantly by combining two trends that technology brought into the scene recently: cloud computing and outsourcing. The cloud will solve the hardware and software side with cloud-hosted solutions such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), which are basically the cloud equivalent of having an in-hour IT infrastructure. On the manpower part, outsourcing will save the day: instead of having to hire local people, train them, provide offices and so on, simply outsource the work to a remote team. Aside from the fact that the team you will be outsourcing to will have their own equipment and software, you will also have a wide pool of skilled people to choose from. Last but not least, there’s the location-based cost advantage to consider - the average salary is not the same in all parts of the world, so you might be lucky enough to find some professionals you can outsource to that will do the job just as good as local ones, but at a fraction of the cost.Flexibility
Flexibility is another big problem that can be solved by outsourcing. Say you have a returning client coming in with a request that’s slightly outside of your field as work; what do you do? Instead of risking losing the client due to the inability to satisfy his needs, you become flexible and find a solution, and that solution is outsourcing. If the task requires different skills than what your business can offer, outsourcing to someone who has the necessary skills is the key to success. You will get to take credit for a job well done, the client gets his needs fulfilled - it’s a win-win. In today’s economy, being flexible and adapting to the needs of the clients is a must.
Management
A business is like giant machinery that only works well if all the components work well. Now, if you were to supervise a giant machinery, and know that some components are more complicated, and thus prone to being problematic, you would keep a closer eye on those components, right? That’s exactly what you’ll be doing in a growing business, and those complicated components are all the sub-segments of the IT branch. The problem from keeping a close eye on small divisions is that, while you do that, other divisions may go out of control.
Once again, IT outsourcing saves the day: instead of wasting money and time on setting up and keeping track of such divisions, you can just outsource as many of those tasks as possible. Data entry, customer support, public relations - these are just some of the segments that can be safely outsourced, thus leaving you more time to focus on core aspects of your business.
One more advantage of outsourcing your IT department is that you don’t have to worry about system breaches and security problems, and having a response team ready. Opting for an in-house infrastructure implies having someone keep an eye on things 24/7, but when outsourcing, this is not your issue to deal with anymore. This means less money spent and better reliability - another win-win.
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