Outsourcing as a Strategic Tool for Company Growth
Content
We will begin this article in a non-traditional manner with several definitions. It is necessary because people randomly use specific words – specifically outsourcing, support and helpdesk – but not always is the definition identical to the popular outlook.
dictionary
Outsourcing – letting an external subject manage a part or the whole IT department
Helpdesk – customer center helping with questions and problems; for a company or for its customers as a white-label solution
Support – the whole area including outsourcing and helpdesk and other services (like a monitoring center)
What Does Fall into Outsourcing?
As can be seen from the definition, outsourcing includes any services that are provided by an external sibject as if it were a part of the IT department.
Some companies have decided to outsource all of their IT activities because it would not have been efficient to put together an internal IT team. This company is therefore fully dependent upon the supplier but at the same time doesn’t have to take care of anything. From a forgotten password to an email inbox, through a broken computer after an update to the management of company servers. This complex service includes the most basic activities but the responsobility reaches to the core itself – care for and repairs to the most compmlicated devices in the IT department. Today it can be servers but also cloud environment running all the systems.
Some companies don’t need this kind of care so they choose only a specific area they need some extra helping hand.
- Infrastructure management
- Device maintenance
- Networking
These services are sometimes supplemented with helpdesk so rather than about continuous care it is about problem solving.
Why Is Outsourcing Economically Beneficial?
You have to pay for a service. It used to be that what we can do ourselves, it is cheaper to do it ourselves. But with the advent of copmplicated technologies this is no longer an axiom. Especially in IT we find some areas that arrive at the exact opposite. How can then outsourcing be economically beneficial? it can be seen in 5 areas:
- CAPEX for the IT department
- OPEX of the IT department
- Not enough IT employees
- Training
- Sustainability
CAPEX of the it department
Each department in a company needs investment finances. In the case of IT, it is the purchase of equipment and devices the technicians need to have at hand. And IT equipment is not cheap (sometimes it is not even available).
One thing is to buy equipment for operations. The other is to buy sufficient equipment for the technicians. All of these costs can be removed when a company selects an outsourcing partner. Then CAPEX are all his responsibility.
OPEX of the It department
Operational costs are even a bigger item on the cost list. IT departments need them to support the professional technicians that today are not a cheap. Besides, when they have to take care of the whole IT department, the level and scope of their knowledge has to be superb.
And IT usually doesn’t work 8/5 because problems just simply don’t wait and there may be a need to work overnight. This adds up operational costs which would otherwise have been constraint only to a specific segment of a day.
- Wages
- Overtime
- Additional fees
- Energies
small it crowd
Another aspect is the search and securing of technicians. The market is not exactly overflowing and it is more and more problematic to find new employees that match the skills needed.
This process is also very time consuming. Even is a company hires an agency that looks for the employees, we still encounter costs that are generates by this process.
training
Own IT department needs to be equiped with technicians that have specialized knowledge and skills. The costs for training and certification are high and it is not just about one-time events. Technologies are constantly evolving and it is necessary to keep up.
There can also be a situation when the company needs to implement a new technology that requires new technicians with relevant know-how. The costs are growing very fast.
sustainability
This is not a reference to nature – you have to keep your technicians. As noted above, the job market is not really spitting out tons of relevant candidates. Keeping the technicians in the company is much harder than with other professions.
Outsouring Brings along Several Significant Benefits
Economics of a company is crucial for its survival. Outsourcing is an approach to running a department that brings several economical benefits. Finances can therefore be used in a different area and all services are summed up into one invoice.
