Outsourced IT Services

The concept of having a third party assist a company with day to day task around Information Technology is not a new process. It’s steadily growing and becoming the norm.  Companies are slowing moving away from the traditional in-house IT department to a more outsourced IT approach. There are numerous advantages to this as well as the not so obvious disadvantages.  The biggest and popular reason to outsource your IT is to cut cost, there is big saving advantages by eliminating a dedicated staff to work and maintain your IT environment. This alone should not be the sole reason as to consider moving your IT duties to a third party. Managed services favours the small to medium size business as they may not have a large number of employees, their operating budget isn’t as high, having a IT staff on payroll will may not be necessary.

Why choose Outsourced IT

The first reason would be lowered cost, as stated earlier in article. It free up the company to use the extra finical capital and reinvest back into the company. Having your IT Outsourced offers the company a way to control their expenditure, the fixed cost is minimal compared to internal staff. Budgets can be utilized much more efficiently to increase productivity and enhance your IT environment. Companies pay a subscription fee to the third party that will provide end to end IT management. The cost of particular services are straight forward, no need to provision equipment such as Active Directory servers, backup servers or purchase licenses. All this cost will eventually total to a high figure and you still need IT support to maintain the upkeep. Outsourcing means you only pay for the servers and licenses you need at that time, what you need in terms of equipment will be dynamic. Cloud hosted servers reduce the need for capital expenditures and simplifies the allocation of funds as an operational cost. The added benefit is that a company is not confined to price out infrastructure for the next 3 years when purchasing equipment but instead pay for what is need and increase with time. Outsourcing offers the client flexibility, if a project is release they can get it contracted out for that duration, you get people with the know-how on what is current and up-to-date. There is that added experience that is brought to the table. No need to pay for your in-house staff to go on seminars or get certifications to acknowledge their competency at the company’s expense. As the Outsource IT company will be doing all theses on their end. All you need to do is pay for the services that are required.

Due Diligence when Outsourcing IT

Outsourcing has numerous benefits but it also has it disadvantages. The savings a company will get from Outsourcing would normally lead to employees jobs being redundant, the IT staff are laid-off and even some employees who are not linked to the IT department. As more services are being outsourced or hosted else where there is no there isn’t a need to have an office or a big staff. A more sensible concern when it comes to Outsourcing is provided the third party with access to your components, it is inevitable that you need to allow access but a lot of clients do not find that idea appealing, especially when dealing with sensitive information. Is that information even allowed to be handled or host by a third party, what are the laws governing the off-shore use datacenters. The client will have to understand where the data or hosted services are located, as each country is subjected to their own laws. Company’s should do their due diligence with a prospective Managed IT Service providers and ensure they understand how the service works and in the instance of hosting where your data is located. These are some of the things to look at when considering Outsourcing your IT, there isn’t a set standard and communication is key when discussing this as requirements have to be clear. Furthermore the options should be scalable to what an individual client may need in the future.

Written by:

Martin Rumisha

System Architects Inc.