When your company does not need IT outsourcing
2015-03-23
Pavel Krištof, Technical Account Manager
If you have ever considered IT outsourcing or were at least interested in what such model could bring, you’ve probably already heard of the possible benefits. They include potential savings, improved required services, eliminating the burden of responsibilities that are not your core business and thanks to which you can devote more time to what is truly important for your customers.
However, despite all the promises, IT outsourcing does not have to be suitable for every company. How can you know if it is suitable for your company? It’s not so complicated. Here are several reasons for which your company might not need to outsource your IT.
You have a perfect IT department
An outsourcing partner should ensure that the IT works almost perfectly in your company, that everything is set up and optimized to eliminate failures and protect company data. If your IT fulfills these expectations it’s a sign that your IT department is qualified and not undersized. There is no reason to change unless your informatics technicians are not fully utilized and thus your labor costs are unreasonably high.
Can you operate in a limited regime even without IT
The role of IT in your company operations is one of the crucial questions when considering outsourcing. How much would it cost if IT failed for half a day or a full day or two days? Would your enterprise be fully paralyzed, i.e., unable to produce or sell, or can you go on at least in a limited regime? If you don’t need to include guarantees in your contract that stipulate that in the event of a system or network failure, everything will be up and running within two hours or even within 30 minutes, this is another reason why not to outsource your IT services.
You have no valuable data
These days, data are among a company’s most valuable assets. We could argue here whether the security of data would be under better surveillance of your internal IT staff or the patronage of an external outsourcing partner, but the general truth is that the risks are lower in the second case and your data are better protected (also due to the option to apply high sanctions to suppliers in contractual relations). If you aren’t especially worried about the loss of data, you don’t have the slightest reason to turn to outsourcing.
Your IT infrastructure is simple
If your employees do not use various mobile devices with diverse operation systems or if there is no server or central data storage in your company, it is possible that you don’t need any extraordinary know-how for your IT administration and maintenance. Although a simple IT infrastructure reduces the reasons for outsourcing, we must consider the fact that people use their own mobile devices for work and connect to corporate networks or they run company applications in these devices. Naturally, this increases the security risks.
Flexibility is not important for you
If there is no need for frequent changes in your IT, there is a smaller chance for success of outsourcing in your company. Therefore, if you don’t operate based on projects, there are no great seasonal swings in business, you don’t need to quickly add or remove network users or your computers and mobile devices don’t need to be ready quickly, the capabilities of an internal IT department may sufficiently cover current operations and maintenance. However, in the event of swings and sudden projects, it could be difficult for them to take care of the influx of new requirements. As opposed to this situation, an external provider doesn’t address matters consecutively but in parallel.
You have no non-standard requirements
Sometimes, companies have non-standard requirements which, for various reasons, their own IT departments may not be able to handle. This may pertain to an IT infrastructure hybrid mode when data storage devices are located on the company premises and a part of the services are run in a cloud. Unless you have identical or similar requirements, for which you need certified specialists, you can manage your IT operations even without an external partner.
You don’t want to be up to date
If you don’t mind having other managers looking at you as if you were a dinosaur because you fill out transfer orders on paper and send secretaries to the bank, don’t worry. Keep your IT operations “at home.” In the best case scenario, others will simply think of you as someone who doesn’t want to be up to date.
