Three reasons to outsource your IT
IT outsourcing can provide a business with the best solutions in the market without any need to incur the costs of an in-house IT department. By transferring the responsibility to a supplier, the company no longer needs to spend its own time, energy or money on hiring and maintaining an in-house IT department, while at the same time they can choose a predefined service level with clear pricing. These are some of the benefits that are making IT outsourcing an increasingly common option for many companies.
Why should you outsource your IT?
There are many reasons for going over to IT outsourcing. A lack of in-house competence or difficulties in attracting competent staff are common reasons. If you engage a supplier that has IT as its field of expertise, you will often have better prospects of developing the business than if you have to do it yourself.
Outsourcing of an IT environment can vary in scope and involve different services, depending on the business’s needs. It can include many different services, with everything from system development, system administration, infrastructure, integration and clients to processes, hardware and support. What all solutions have in common is that you no longer need to spend time fire-fighting, but can instead focus in full on your core businesses – while at the same time saving time and achieving greater cost control.
Three reasons to outsource your IT
- Outsourcing your IT reduces your costs and increases cost control. You do not need to invest in infrastructure and avoid unforeseen cost increases. The cost reduction or saving actually consists of the company only paying for what it uses, and avoiding the fixed costs involved in hardware purchases. You also have a fixed monthly cost, making it easier to plan your budget.
- You can upscale or downscale your IT when needs change and avoid having to commit over time or make sure you have the right capacity or competence available. When the business grows or shrinks, there are many benefits in having outsourced your IT operation or clients to a supplier. The supplier you choose should have flexibility to make quick changes in terms of disk space, server capacity and computer environment. By outsourcing your IT, you can implement increases or reductions from one month to another according to the business’s needs.
- The company’s employees can focus on the core business, while at the same time employees have both faster and better support. With access to greater competence and more resources for the company’s IT, employees can instead focus on what brings value to the business. This makes the business more competitive and gives it a better opportunity to develop.
Challenges in the outsourcing of IT
The biggest challenge in outsourcing IT is finding a supplier that understands the company’s business needs and is able to deliver the services required. It is important to involve the whole management team from the outset to make sure that the demands made of the supplier are in line with what has to be achieved in the business. Sometimes, when the relationship with the supplier is perceived to be poor, i.e. that the IT environment is muddled and the IT manager gets the blame for a poor outcome, there is a risk that this is because the agreement has been wrongly formulated or miscommunicated.
Summary
To summarise all this, IT outsourcing can reduce a company’s IT costs dramatically. This, combined with added values such as increased security, enhanced competence and a higher level of quality, as well as better availability, makes the outsourcing of IT a smart, future-proof alternative for most businesses.
If outsourcing is a part of your company’s plans for the future, it is important to choose a stable partner, and to work together to perform an analysis of your business to see where the opportunities for efficiency are to be found in your particular business.
We would be happy to meet you to tell you more about how we can help your business by outsourcing your IT to us, and more about the benefits that your particular company can enjoy.