All companies will face challenges and opportunities at any given moment in their business cycle, whether at a point in a growth curve or for instance when passing through a critical rough patch when tough decisions need to be taken. More organisations are starting to understand that these challenges and opportunities can be better addressed in terms of how fast they can respond to a fast-changing environment and therefore how efficient and effective they can be at any time.
One of the most important factors in being agile and adaptive is maintaining lean and well focused business operations with the least amount of resource wastage throughout the entire company structure. This is where outsourcing has been the name of the game for some years and growing in demand.
In the following sections, we will consider outsourcing as a business strategy and look into the most outsourced sector around, IT Outsourcing.
Why Outsource?
The idea behind outsourcing part of your business to a third party is in fact to have less problems that need to be managed internally using your own resources, and leave it up to other people and teams outside your company that already have the knowledge, assets and expertise to do so. Young and agile startup companies are typically the ones quickly adopting outsourcing as part of their business strategy because they understand more than anyone else the power of focusing on the core business while having other company functions managed by capable third-parties.
IT outsourcing
One of the most popular outsourcing activities is in IT. This basically means having the company’s IT needs and operations outsourced by a third party company. This could entail anything from simply managing the hardware inventory and setting up the infrastructure and servers, but even to manage software application development, in-house database management, storage and security, etc.
IT outsourcing is becoming very common nowadays and growing in popularity because it is one of those areas where although important for the success of a company, it is not directly linked to the business such as for example Sales & marketing, or business development, or Human Resources are. It is an integral part of the company but working more in the background. It is a silent operator so to speak.
This means that it makes more sense not to dilute internal resources such as money, time or human capital on building up and maintaining the IT component within the organisation and have those resources rerouted to the essential drivers behind business growth such as the core business operations.
KaapiSoft can help provide successful IT Outsourcing services to clients who need support in terms of application development, automated workflows or integrating some of their systems for increased efficiency and productivity.
Main Benefits of IT Outsourcing
The most important key benefits in IT outsourcing have mainly got to do with efficiency, minimizing disruptions to the operations, and having a better orchestrated long term plan that is at par with the company’s needs and growth.
Remote Support:
Considering that more companies are shifting their hardware and software online such as for example virtual servers and cloud computing, the idea of having internal IT support around the clock is becoming less of a need.
This has created the opportunity for having your IT support managed outside of the company’s premises. Systems can now be managed remotely without even needing to call your support team in case a server is down at 3am in the morning. Everything can be done remotely and automatically. In short, that which works in the background can truly stay in the background without affecting the other parts of the business.
Reducing Billable Hours & Idle Time:
One of the caveats of having in-house IT personnel is that you have to pay the hours no matter if there is a long lull and problem-free period. It often happens in fact that companies using full-time employees in IT feel that there is a cost they are paying for idle time. With outsourcing, generally there is a contract-based agreement on a basic fixed monthly ‘retainer’ but then billed according to the number of hours employed in actual support. This reduces the overall billable cost by a considerable factor.
On-demand, Project-based Assignments:
Related to the above is the idea that when it comes to project management involving things such as for example product development, outsourced IT becomes an on-demand resource you can plan for and involve at the right time without needing to have a full-time in-house that would be idle once the project is completed.
A Larger Knowledge Pool:
Another huge advantage of outsourcing that many people often overlook is that you are bringing in a larger body of knowledge from a team of people with different work experience and expertise built over the years across different contexts. Instead of having one skilled person, you are having a company (you are outsourcing to) that has cumulative knowledge from past and present collaborators and team members from different industries, technology expertise and life experiences.
3 Mistakes to watch out for when Outsourcing your IT:
There are a few downsides to outsourcing that are worth mentioning before going forward so you can consciously and intelligently avoid them. We do not need to repeat mistakes especially if the thing we are looking for is efficiency. Here are 3 things to watch out for before outsourcing your IT.
The first is to know very accurately what your internal resources are. This might seem obvious but in many cases it is overlooked. You cannot know exactly what, why and how much you need to outsource if you have not diligently assessed where your assets and resources are. Having a more accurate picture of your strengths and weaknesses, will give a more accurate understanding of the level of outsourcing you need, saving more valuable time and money to the business. Like anything else, you don’t need to go in blindly. Be quantitative and inquisitive first.
The second common issue is timing and this is often linked to lack of good planning. Just like assessing your internal resources to have an idea of where your gaps are, it is also important to know when and plan for timeframes you need outsourcing beforehand. Very often outsourcing comes as an afterthought, just when the symptom has become very obvious and some damage or inefficiencies have already been created. Other times it’s the opposite where companies start outsourcing an aspect of their IT ahead of time. The recommendation is to map your outsourcing needs against your 3 year business plan and strategy.
The third problem you need to watch out for is heavily over-relying on one person in your company to manage the IT outsourcing. Get more people within your company and teams involved and in the know with regards to your outsourced IT services. The reason for this is to reduce disruption if the one person involved in IT outsourcing is incapable of reporting to work, on vacation or decides to leave the organization. As they say, ‘Do not put all your eggs in one basket’ and this applies especially to IT outsourcing.
If you keep your eyes on these three possible pitfalls of outsourcing, you are covered and prepared enough to get your business going as you take advantage of the different opportunities that IT outsourcing can open up for your business.