Abstract

As the technology world which evolves business environments have changed, managers and providers contemplate how to manage their IT services and users in the new office. In this article, Prism Solutions explores the benefits of Outsourcing IT.

Introduction

The typical choices for businesses to ponder is either Outsourcing or internal IT management – businesses that choose neither with the advent of BYOD will leave end users to make their own choices.

Outsourcing is increasing organically, the growth of mobile devices and simple applications has increased the natural take up of technology in start-up, small and growing businesses. Once the appetite for efficiencies has been stirred, decision makers will start to look for more. At this point the scales are tipped either to manage internally or outsource. With any tipping point there are factors that will unbalance the equilibrium.

Outsourcing strategy

There are many benefits to implementing an Outsourced strategy over internal management. First of all, financially, there are generally lower costs associated with outsourcing as opposed to insourcing although this should not be the primary driver for change. For example, an IT Manager receives £25-30,000 per annum, but if you outsource with a 30 user business, that would cost you around the region of £9,500 a year. A large number of employees are dependent on an insourced IT Manager or employee, although comforting for the end user and decision maker this comfort and trust can be misplaced.
With the pace of technology and business industries so incredibly fast, it is often difficult to train current staff members of the latest advances. Having to train employees will take time and cost money and this could leave businesses behind and in danger of missing out.

Business continuity

Another benefit to using Outsourcing IT is Business Continuity. I had mentioned before about how that is beneficial to keep the cloud running and SMEs are far more flexible than huge corporations and can instigate changes and improvements in their internal policies far quicker. Churn in staff numbers is difficult to manage in any organisation but when the one individual holds the IT knowledge this risk is far greater exposed.

With Outsourcing, you should always expect guaranteed response through service level agreements. These are commonly used by Internet Service Providers (ISP) and telephone companies but are now more prevalent in the MSP (managed service provider) space. Previously the preserve of larger providers for enterprise clients these are now becoming standard in SME world.

Outsourcing, of course, has its issues, like any other system. However, it makes life a lot easier for businesses that require a simpler way to running an IT system.