Change is unavoidable. The shift from on-premise or in-house IT department to outsourced IT represents a wake for most organizations and businesses. Most organizations – retail, manufacturing, media, entertainment, legal, and insurance – are undertaking outsourced IT solutions.
This shift has been facilitated by the many benefits of new technology. According to the Technology Acceptance Model TAM, new users tend to partake in updated forms of technology because of two driving factors: the ease of use and the perceived usefulness of newer technology.
In terms of ease of use, organizations perceive outsourced IT as convenient and easy-to-use. You only have to call a trusted service provider and take your head off your IT load. However, as opposed to on-premise IT, outsourcing your IT department frees you of all your IT tasks. Outsourcing your IT department lets you relax and focus on the bottom line.
So, what benefits do you enjoy by incorporating an outsourced IT department? Well, let’s dig:
1. Control IT Costs
Running an on-premise IT department is costly. The costs associated with a physical IT department include personnel costs, hardware costs, software costs, and upgrade costs. This is not to mention system upgrade and maintenance costs that come with software updates and hardware upgrades. Outsourcing IT converts fixed IT costs into variable costs, enabling you to budget effectively. You get to pay for what you use, saving you time and impacting your bottom line.
2. Training and certification
By outsourcing your IT, you essentially optimize the skills, talents, experience, and proficiencies of experts. It’s hard to know if your employees are qualified if you’re not qualified yourself. Running an IT department is costly, leaving a lot to be desired as far as skill upgrades and experience are concerned.
Outsourcing your IT allows you to tap into industry certifications, including the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer MCSE, Certified Google Cloud Engineer, and so on – because you’re working with professionals.
3. Qualification doesn’t equal experience
Leading IT companies experience a few new problems. Since their internal IT department is unaware of changing trends and evolving threats, these problems reoccur, affecting other areas. An in-house IT employee leads an isolated case no matter how hard they train. They never navigate the changing IT landscape to witness changing threats.
Organizations running in-house IT teams decouple themselves from cyber realities and automatically become victims of new threats. By incorporating an outsourced IT department, you essentially leverage a tested and proven model to deal with multiple threats. Outsourcing IT allows you to tap into the industry experience of existing experts.
4. Efficiency and competitiveness
Organizations that try to manage all their IT have more research, development, and implementation requirements, all of which increase the operational time as well as costs. Most of these costs are passed on to customers. Handling your IT in-house sees you dedicating crucial time to troubleshooting issues and upgrading systems instead of serving your customers to grow your bottom line.
Incorporating an outsourced IT department saves you time, allowing you to focus on serving your customers and exceeding their expectations. For instance, a hotel or restaurant outsourcing its IT may spend more time booking and making reservations instead of customizing its web landing pages. In the long-term, outsourcing your IT proves far more beneficial and profitable because of the efficiency gains that lead to competitive positioning.
5. Faster implementation
When implementing new technology, in-house teams must research existing and competing technologies. Procurement teams must engage multiple suppliers, obtain quotations, and make purchases. After products and software are purchased, they have to be implemented and maintained over time.
A quality outsourced IT service firm will have all the resources to do the installation right away. However, handling all the tasks yourself requires you to hire and train new employees to handle new service requirements. So, working with an IT service firm allows you to focus on the bottom line and improve your offerings.
6. Risk reduction
Every investment carries a certain level of risk. For instance, tech deployments can harbor risks such as financial regulations, competition, and privacy regulations. Outsourcing an IT department helps you to remain ahead of emerging areas of regulation that may present an inherent business risk. For instance, deploying an automation system and remote cloud may present the risk of compromising your client’s personal information and credit card information.
However, incorporating an outsourced IT department decouples you from the risk of installing new software and protecting client information. Quality and professional service providers are covered in case of risk. In addition, you enjoy risk management and business continuity processes because you can recover data as well as critical business applications immediately after an incident.
Contact Bastionpoint to leverage a professional and qualified outsourced IT department.
Chief Information Officer / vCIO
I provide CIO and IT Support Services alongside a mid-sized technical support team of engineers for business. Bastionpoint Technology is a managed service provider for businesses ranging from 1-500 users! We specialize in Legal, Medical, and Professional services, but support so much more. Retail, Finance, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Non-Profits, and you’ve certainly heard of our clients. We offer unlimited on-demand services, with an on-demand price point to meet every client’s needs. Just call on us – we put your business first!
