Companies are turning their attention towards outsourcing services for specific sectors of their business. One sector that is 100% on board with this trend is IT.
Companies that don’t offer IT services will most likely look for 3rd party services rather than hire an in-house team. But why is that? Well, that’s the purpose of this article.
So if you are interested in the advantages and disadvantages of IT outsourcing, this is the article for you. With all that said, let’s start.
Advantages of IT Outsourcing
First off, let’s look at the good sides. Outsourcing is no doubt in high demand nowadays. As IT becomes more in demand, people will find ways to overcome many difficulties of outsourcing IT services.
1. Access To Better Talent
As a company that looks to outsource its IT needs, you won’t be hiring anyone. Instead, you’ll seek the services of other experts who will take care of all IT-related tasks.
But that doesn’t mean you’re not getting access to some of the best talents in the industry. The great thing about outsourcing is that you can hire anyone to work from anywhere in the world.
That’s why the industry has massively expanded to help businesses what they need. Access to better talent is a major advantage when it comes to doing just that. But it isn’t the only one.
2. Scalability
Scalability issues are a big reason why businesses fail. And it can be a big reason with your in-house IT department. As your company grows, you will need to adjust everything from manpower to finances and what’s worked in the past might not be true now.
But scaling a business is rather difficult. Business owners have to take into account a lot of factors to successfully upgrade. But the area of operations that is most impacted by this is IT.
The ability to easily scale is a big reason why companies choose to outsource their IT needs. Since you don’t have to worry about anything when it comes to doing that, it is one less problem to have.
The entity in charge of scaling operations will be the company that you outsource from. Considering that you’ll have an agreement in place, they will obviously meet your demands as it will be good for business.
3. Fewer Costs
And the last advantage that we’ll talk about is related to cost. Business costs can run the company to the ground. This includes hiring costs, salary costs, benefits, hardware, software, etc. We mentioned that hiring an in-house IT team is the other options companies have.
Well, to do that, companies will have to not only spend resources to find the talent, but they will have to hire them, pay benefits, acquire the right hardware, software, and even their own station to work from.
These costs are enough to put off even the wealthiest of businesses from opening an in-house IT department. These costs do not exist when choosing to outsource.
That’s why we suggest you do that. If you’re having difficulties finding the right IT company to outsource from, make sure to see what IT Outsourcing this company provides. This is extremely important to consider for software development or staff augmentation. Those services can become too expensive for US-based businesses and it is always better to delegate such jobs.
Disadvantages of Outsourcing IT
Although there is plenty of good stuff to talk about, there is an equal amount of bad stuff. Let’s see what that is.
1. Difference In Time
We did mention that IT services are doing everything they can to solve this issue. But sadly, very few of them want to work late and sleep through the day.
This is why if you’re going with a company from overseas with a huge time difference, it might be a problem for the company to maintain the working relationship.
If you choose to outsource from overseas, you will have a harder time finding the people to work with due to the difference in time. What you’ll need to do in this case is spend more money and resourcing looking for a company willing to do that.
2. Less Control
Since you are indeed outsourcing to someone, they are in charge of IT operations. That isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean you will have less control over IT operations.
This isn’t anything serious as your company will have a written agreement in place with the outsourcing company, but you’ll find it more difficult to control what they do.
Make no mistake; they are there to take care of IT operations. But you won’t have any boots on the ground to control every single thing that’s happening there. So in the best of cases, you’ll have slightly less control over what’s happening.
3. Communication Difficulties
Whenever outsourcing anything, there is always a language problem. Not every person speaks English, and many that do aren’t natives.
So that means companies will need to overcome communication barriers and difficulties if they want a long-term working relationship. Speaking English has never been more important than now.
Countries from all over the world know this, and that’s a big reason why they introduce the language from an early age. Doing business overseas has never been easier than now, and companies are no longer facing this problem. But there will always be communication issues with the company you plan to outsource to.
If the language wasn’t a problem, then other factors can also make communicating difficult between both entities.
Finishing Thoughts
Offshore outsourcing has never been more popular than now. Companies in the US are choosing to go down this path more and more as IT becomes more in demand. With the rising talent in regions such as Europe and Asia, it’s only a matter of time before every small business owner decides to go down this route.
There are obvious advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing IT, and we hope that this article has explained that. Lastly, we hope that this article will help you come to the conclusion of what’s best for your business.
