Outsourced IT services

Company Growth and Outsourced IT Resources or suppliers

In many companies, especially smaller ones, the IT team wears many hats, diluting their talents as they install and configure complex software in the morning, while lugging and installing hardware in the afternoon. As the company relies on them for day-to-day operations, many IT professionals don’t get the chance to upgrade their skills and learn new technologies that could benefit the company. Addressing challenges like the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) fiascoes that many companies experienced when employees first started using mobile devices. IT departments, without a model for securely supporting them, simply restricted or banned them.

Sometimes new hires can bring in fresh experience and ideas, but outsourced IT can too. Top-tier talent is available, ready to “hit the ground running” and with experience in areas that can expand the company’s IT vision. Forbes shares their wisdom about software IT outsourcing that many clients might not consider (1):

“Outsource when IT begins to take time away from the functioning of your business. The more time you spend on your IT setup, the less time you are spending on your business objectives. Often when you outsource your IT, you get an entire team with a wide variety of skills, rather than having a single in-house resource. Don’t wait until you make a mess of your setup to outsource your IT!”

– Forbes

Their complete, fairly robust list offers reasons why a company should outsource a varying amount of its IT operations depending on what is to their advantage. The gains range from accessing expert resources and specialized skillsets to refocusing the company’s internal operations on their core business activities.

The “Catch Me if You Can” Model of Support

Busy IT workers often get behind on their messaging and support requests, resulting in company employees watching for them to pass in the hallways paparazzi-style and trying to get a moment of precious IT support time. Larger companies implement a tiered model of service, often with multiple methods of access including a call center, online messaging, and email, so employees can make sure to sync up even while traveling and get their IT service needs met. What many companies don’t realize is that several tiers of support services, which represent levels of technical sophistication and responsibility for support staff, can be filled by connecting outsourced IT services into the mix. The outsourced team members dynamically meet the company’s support needs, using the same communication methods that are available in-house for larger companies, and dispatch IT requests as necessary to higher-tier workers who are part of the company’s in-house team.

Without a Champion like gartner or sonatafy, a Disconnect Can Occur

While the additional resources that software IT outsourcing provides are designed to mesh with the company’s internal systems and operate with some degree of synergy, both the company’s employees and the technology workers providing outsourced services need to have a steady hand maintaining the connection. Company workers can be quick to blame the outsourcing for occasional IT issues, and external workers may be frustrated if they don’t have the resources they need to dispatch help or provide company-specific information.

A champion, who is a manager taking responsibility for promoting the outsourced solution and addressing issues proactively so that it runs smoothly, is essential to the success of the outsourcing mission. Wise C-level management may even require that outsourcing be more than just a good idea, but the subject of someone’s explicit commitment. CIO magazine quotes an industry thought leader who learned that initiatives such as software IT sourcing require a champion, not just a business justification if they are to be effective and yield the desired results (2):

“The CFO told me he didn’t believe any of the numbers in a business case, and only approves major IT initiatives when there’s a business leader committed to leveraging the new capabilities.”

– CIO

Experienced Outsourcing Wisdom

One solution for managing the connection between company workers and external resources is a company that specializes in “straightening the kinks” of the relationship from legal agreements and setting expectations to helping maintain a positive, effective atmosphere regarding the opportunity. Companies like Sonatafy specialize in making and maintaining connections between US-based companies and “nearshore” resources, which are highly trained and experienced IT international workers located in geographically and culturally similar locations. With a nearshoring expert on board, the company in need of resources can reduce the overhead of acquiring and managing external resources, and focus on enjoying the benefits of having an enthusiastic team of workers contributing to their company’s success.

Champions Need Experienced Support for Their Success

For organizations new to outsourcing or nearshoring, companies like Sonatafy also provide the experience and wisdom needed to convince upper management that the outsourcing plan is sound, cost-effective, with technical advantages, and with appropriate risk mitigation in place. Most of all, as an intermediary, these outsourcing experts can make sure that managers who choose to champion the use of this valuable resource have experienced support so they will be able to manage the connection and get the results their company needs (3).

When highly skilled people can outsource lower-value tasks and spend more time on high-value tasks, businesses tend to benefit.

– Smart Asset

Companies of all sizes connect with nearshore resources, so clearly software IT outsourcing is a sustainable way to meet company IT services needs.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why do companies outsource IT services?

Because it makes business sense for them, but beyond that the reasons range from gaining access to expertise they need for a specific project to refocusing their in-house people on their core business and minimizing their IT headcount. In fact they’re many in-demand IT jobs that might require taking a closing look into the hiring process, where outsourcing may not be the best solution.

Why you should outsource your IT department?

For targeted benefits that can help your company competitively. Cost savings is a popular reason, but it should be balanced with equivalent or even improved IT services as a result.

Can we outsource an IT function?

Absolutely. Support call center activity is a popular IT function to outsource separately. In fact, they’re many benefits to outsourcing IT divisions within your company to reduce overhead, and speed up the fulfilling process

What are the negative effects of outsourcing?

Losing some control over the provision of IT services and the quality of those services is one common concern. Security is also an issue, both in vetting personnel and protecting communications lines used for provision of IT services external to the company’s network.

What are the pros and cons of outsourcing?

The pros of software IT outsourcing are generally focused around more flexible resource allocation and access, with better cost control. The cons arise when considering lack of control, including accountability and security issues as well as overall quality of services.

What is the number one reason for outsourcing?

Cost control is the major reason for companies to access IT services on an outsourcing basis.

What is the main impact of outsourcing?

A CFO will see cost savings, a CIO will see a shift from managing people and infrastructure to managing services and infrastructure, and the COO will see IT gains.

Who benefits from outsourcing?

Properly done, the company’s operations benefit most of all from outsourcing, because they can gain advantages such as increased access to productivity technology experts, more flexible IT services coverage hours, and new ideas to improve their operations and productivity from an IT team that has more access to training and peer interaction than a more limited internal IT services team might have. For example, software development can be complex and require more than one person to complete a project. Here are some of the best countries to outsource from.

What are the benefits of outsourcing IT services?

Often economies of scale kick in, as outsourcing organizations provide services to a number of clients and so have access to more internal resources and information than most internal IT organizations. Cost savings is a natural outcome as well, and flexible availability without keeping internal staff “on call” can be a big benefit in reducing stress on internal IT teams and providing better response times for off-hours workers.

What are the reasons of outsourcing?

In today’s market, there are a pair of reasons that lead companies towards outsourcing. The first is the difficulty in fully staffing an internal IT services organization given the current market for talent. The second, since the increased demand also translates to increased salaries, is the ability to control costs better with an outsourced IT services organization.

Why is outsourcing two reasons?

Getting the IT expertise your organization needs, even if you’re a small company and can’t afford to keep the right IT staff in-house.

If you’re a large organization that sees its IT services organization as a cost center, outsourcing can reduce the costs, reflecting well on the bottom line.

Is outsourcing good or bad?

Whether IT services outsourcing is good or bad depends on how it is implemented, and for what reasons. Software IT outsourcing needs to be an intentional, conscious choice with a commitment to tracking quality and effectiveness of the services. If it is just shifting responsibility from inside the company to an external vendor, problems can arise.

What are two benefits of outsourcing?

A company can increase their IT services innovation, for example in launching an upgraded web portal, without staffing internally and developing in-house expertise just for that purpose.

Internal IT services staff can provide more personalized support and empower workers to do their jobs with enhanced software tools while offloading day-to-day routine IT tasks to an outsourced provider.

Is outsourcing a good idea?

For many companies, it can be a very good idea if internal management commits to managing the outsourced resources effectively. It can turn “can we?” questions at the C-suite level into “can do” answers from managers who have flexible access to IT services resources.

What are some examples of outsourcing?

• Temporarily increasing staffing and expertise for IT upgrades and conversions
• Using outsourced IT support call center staff to provide one or more lower-level tiers of IT support
• Creating new internal web applications for customized data access or other functions

What are the objectives of outsourcing?

Outsourcing IT services is intended to:

• Gain Cost savings on IT services
• Move provision of some IT services from internal staff to external providers
• Gain additional levels and types of IT services without staffing and training costs
• Avoid adding operational risks by relying on external IT services
• Keep the outsourced IT services on target with the company’s needs

What services can be outsourced?

Pretty much any services that don’t have to be provided on-site. The proliferation of remote workers has demonstrated how a minimum of hardware support can be balanced with highly effective remote IT services. This combination is also perfect for division offices, development teams in large companies, and other organizations, large or small. Specific services can include network management, backup and restore operations, cloud services provisioning, even remote individualized training and shared-screen IT assistance. IT services organizations can dispatch local contractors to install and repair physical IT assets.

What are the benefits and risks of outsourcing IT services?

Companies that outsource IT services have faster, more dynamic, and more affordable access to the IT resources and expertise they need, allowing them to execute company strategy more adeptly. Without proper planning and management, the company’s outcomes for money spent may not be as they expected and intended, including incomplete work and data security risks. We supplemented this answer with a full in depth article about the benefits and risks of outsourcing.

How do you mitigate risks of outsourcing?

Start with a list of realistic expectations and measures, and end with an action plan in case of specific problems such as loss of communications or compromised data. Entering into an outsourcing relationship with full awareness has the best chance of mitigating related risks. Because communication is a big part of risk mitigation, outsourcing to an organization that is easy to stay in touch with is a powerful method for quick recovery in case of issues.