Many companies argue whether outsourcing their IT services would save them any money or if it would actually increase their costs vs having an in-house IT engineer handle their IT requirements.

Actually, I’ve seen many company owners who decide to go for a single in-house IT engineer because of the belief it would cut costs, or because they feel more confident and in control.

So you might be interested to know that the facts are actually the opposite – one of the main reasons (or probably the main reason) for IT outsourcing is for the sake of costs savings. This is so important that not just small companies, but many large enterprises have implemented the IT outsourcing model as a factor of costs saving.

But apart from costs savings, there are also other important reasons for why I would recommend IT outsourcing specially for the small companies and startups.

5 Reasons for Outsourcing

Among many benefits one can list, I think the 5 below are the main reasons I would recommend outsourcing IT services:

1. Saving Money Saving money is probably the most important reason for IT outsourcing. IT outsourcing will eliminate the fixed costs of hiring employees, training, employment insurance and taxes, and a lot more.
2. Receiving Professional Services Nowadays it is almost impossible to find a single employee who is a master in all the different fields of IT that a company needs such as LAN infrastructure, setup and management of servers, VOIP, Video Conferencing, user support, etc. In my experience, companies who do hire their own in-house IT staff fall into a trap where their IT engineer gives them the wrong technical solution, simply because he/she is not a subject-matter-expert in all the fields that the company expects him/her to be. Outsourcing IT services will ensure that the company would have access to a pool of resources when and as needed who are experts in their own fields.
3. Keeping up to date with new technologies It is extremely hard to expect that a single IT employee can keep up to date with all new technology advances. This will prevent companies that depend on their internal IT resources from benefiting on new technologies which could effectively save costs. This is not the case with companies who provide IT outsourcing services – they always keep themselves up to date with new technologies to stay in the competition.
4. Improving Company Focus For companies who depend on their local IT resources, company management would inevitably find themselves dragged into making decisions on IT expenditures and figuring out what solution is the right one to implement, or how accurate the estimations or technical evaluation of their IT employee are. I’ve even seen top management of companies getting engaged in solving basic IT problems that has ultimately halted operations. By outsourcing IT requirements, companies can focus on their core business.
5. Flexibility By outsourcing, it would be very easy to demand resources when needed, without worrying about the workload of in-house IT resources.

Risks of Outsourcing

Like any other “good” service, IT outsourcing also has its own risks. The most important risk that you would need to be careful of is that the company you select for outsourcing does not “lock” you to themselves. I would strongly recommend you make sure you include in your agreement that you receive a copy of all network drawings, equipment login credentials, and details of configurations. I would also recommend not going with any customized or proprietary software that would lock you up with a specific service provider. By following such hints, you can always switch to another IT outsourcing company when needed.