The advantages and Risks of Outsourcing Services
Introduction
For small and medium size organizations, there are benefits and risks
to consider when outsourcing information technology (IT)
infrastructure, support, and maintenance.
If you are a business owner or CFO, you are probably looking at IT outsourcing first and foremost as
a cost saving measure.
Sophisticated technology and support solutions continue to grow in
accessibility, and return on investment (ROI) can be excellent.
If you are a network administrator, you are interested in using tools
that can automate repetitive, simple tasks so you can focus your time on
higher level projects.
Either way, there are both advantages and disadvantages to outsourcing
IT services. Weighing them properly for you specific needs is important
for ROI and to guarantee that the tools and support that are in place
bring value to your company’s bottom line.
The Benefits of IT Outsourcing
As a business owner or manager, when you have a solid service taking care of IT, it lightens your workload.
For example, if you are using an IT managed service provider,
you can pay a flat-fee for all ongoing IT support and service. Your
underlying technology platform is taken care of and the price is set, so
decisions involved in these areas do not have to be made on a regular
basis.
These solutions are designed to be proactive: your service provider will
call you about a problem that was prevented rather than you having to call them to arrange service.
Depending on the size of your network, this type of service can save
money. If your technology needs are great enough to require at least one
full-time staff member for support, then outsourcing to a managed
service provider should actually
lower your costs.
If you use an outside contractor who comes onsite to do most network
support, then you will only have to pay for services rendered. If you
are lucky enough to have few problems with your network or your reliance
on technology is fairly minimal, then using an outsourced, individual
contractor will be the least expensive way to set-up support.
If you are a time-strapped network administrator, outsourcing to a service that has
automated, Internet-based support architecture
will allow you relegate low-level, time consuming maintenance and
support to a data center with tools you would otherwise not have access
to.
Security updates, data backup procedures, and low-level user support can
all be done using remote access tools. This frees you to take care of
internal, proprietary planning and support for your business network.
drawbacks
The risks involved with outsourcing mainly involve accessibility to service.
If you rely on an outside contractor who generally has to come onsite to
support your network, then you live in a world where you simply hope
critical services don’t go down at a time when your ability to conduct
business will be interrupted.
Busy IT contractors may take days before they can come in to help, and
this will likely be unacceptable if the problem is making it impossible
for your staff to work. All the money saved by using a pay-as-you-go
contractor can be lost with one serious issue within your network.
With remote IT support such as managed services, some business owners
are uncomfortable with having less personal touch and immediate
feedback. When you have your own network administrator onsite, you can
call them into your office and get a report or have questions answered. A
remote based service will never be able to match that level of personal
touch.
Also, with remote based managed services, Internet conductivity is
critical. The entire support structure relies on being able to maintain
access to network nodes via the Internet. If conductivity fails, then
the necessary maintenance and support cannot be delivered.
main Drawback
With so much IT infrastructure now being delivered via the Internet
with significant cost savings, including many of the most critical
software applications, most businesses are by default going to be
outsourcing at least some of the IT infrastructure.
If you choose to maintain your environment completely onsite (meaning
you own and maintain your own hardware and software as well as keep
in-house staff) you will keep an element of control over your
environment,
but it will cost you. Every year, this option becomes more expensive when compared to outsourcing infrastructure and support.
If you have a very small network environment, you may be able to get
away with using an outside contractor for IT support. This will give you
the lowest monthly bill unless you have a major issue. Also, you will
need a plan in place for how to do business should you have a network
failure and have to go an extended period of time before the issue can
be resolved.
With advanced data center level support, your business can access technology that is
proactive, preventative, and predictable.
For network maintenance that must be done on a regular basis, such as
security updates and data backup, these solutions are effective, and
redundancies with Internet conductivity will greatly minimize the risk
of loosing service.
You may loose some sense of control over what is going on with your
business IT, but that can also translate into time saved not having to
think about it.
