For some, outsourcing projects might prove to be horrible experiences or unmitigated nightmares, with cost and time overruns, a lack of quality, loss of IP or misplaced functionality. Now, we must accept that this is not always true. Those companies which shed such fears and set risk-mitigation efforts in places are bound to enjoy some unique benefits from outsourcing an IT project. Some of these benefits accrue to the company itself, while others are good for its CTO and IT managers. Let’s look at what they are and how they help companies achieve their strategic goals, and get delivery of the project they initially envisioned.
Benefits to the Company:
- You can engage an outsourcing partner for a project with a clear description and definite functionality of scope, making the client liable for the quality of the project, cost of resources, its day-to-day management and for meeting the deadlines.
- Cut time to production and scale up fast with outsourcing, as you avoid recruiting and training new in-house employees who can deliver to your specific requirements. Outsource to a location with lower production costs to enjoy significant cost savings. Enjoy an uninterrupted workflow, with the outsourced team working on fixing the bigs and developing further as your in-house team sleeps, and vice versa.
- Some of these technical skills come at a really high price, but outsourcing costs are far easier to bear than employment costs for such workers. Under this operating model, but wages, National Insurance contributions and benefits packages become the responsibility of the IT outsourcing provider.
- With the rise of Cloud computing, even non-technical decision-makers are signing up for hosted applications and are reaping the benefits to outsourcing IT tasks.
- Your onsite operations also benefit from the access to additional knowledge and experience in the form of the outsourcing team
Benefits to the CTO:
- Choose an IT provider who can also upgrade your IT systems and establish the most up-to-date technology and service for you. A non-disclosure agreement can help you avoid security and confidentiality issues. A service level agreement helps protect you on the specifications of the agreement and the services and products contracted for.
- Find professionals with hard-to-find technical skills, exactly as per requirement, by taking your project global. Avoid having to have your in-house team trained or technically certified on IT support capabilities. Scale your teams up or down quickly, based on project requirements.
- Some outsourcing providers implement controls on your internal systems too, to maintain a consistently high quality of service. These may be a commitment to a specific technology stack or a proper change control mechanism to handle new developments and deployment. A CTO may find these controls restrictive, but they help to set the highest standard in quality.
Benefits to the Managers:
- Most well-designed security systems set access controls on their data and keep it restricted to a limited number of people. IT outsourcing expands this accessibility, increasing the risk of security breach unless the risks are identified at the outset and mitigated.
- Get the best of both worlds when you outsource to a competent Managed Services Provider to meet your goals on internal IT needs and client servicing requirements at the same time with your access to skilled resources. Enjoy access to the latest infrastructure without investing in it, while keeping your payment schedules flexible.
- Significantly reduce your risk of service outages with your access to multiple backup servers and improved process in ensuring business continuity through disaster recovery measures.
Ultimately, IT outsourcing advantages and disadvantages are determined by the specific needs of a business and its urgency to scale quickly by bringing in the skills it needs to meet its goals, while leaving the internal teams to focus on their core business tasks.
