Features page
In-house vs outsourcing: for fast-growing companies, the range of options, support and expertise is greater than ever before, the benefits clearer, the costs easier to justify and the risks lower.
The type of fast-growing, mid-market and SME businesses that we work with face a real challenge: for any organisation with less than 250 employees, it is difficult to justify the cost of a full-time IT department. Yet the importance of an IT strategy aligned to the business plan has increased exponentially with the realisation that IT is the key enabler to business growth. As the need for Board-level IT representation grows, so does the challenge of delivering cost-effective IT support with in-house resources.
Meeting the strategic and skills demands for the future
Many IT Directors are long-standing employees who have progressed to senior status through long service and loyalty. They may not have the strategic skills required to align your IT strategy properly and effectively to your business plan, but their knowledge of your IT environment is key to your business strategy.
Similarly, an IT team of this size is unlikely to have the breadth of skills needed to manage today’s complex network and application infrastructures. It is also likely that the in-house application development team are fulfilling multiple support roles outside their own skill set. This can lead to a reliance on short-term fixes that can prove more expensive in the longer term.
We believe that carrying the expense of full-time in-house IT staff is not the best approach. Best practice in these environments means accessing the highest quality skills as and when required in the most cost-effective and efficient manner – from strategic direction to network support. That means supporting the IT director with those skills, not necessarily trying to keep all those skills available and up to date within an in-house team.
The challenge of continuing investment
Businesses that focus only on in-house IT services have little choice but to continue investing in new IT to keep up with growing business requirements and to manage product obsolescence. That also means additional costs in training to keep IT staff skills updated. Training, however, is often the first priority for cost-cutting when economies are sought. Many businesses think the answer is to take on more third party service and support contracts, whereas this just adds further risk and cost to the organisation.
The value of IT outsourcing services to your business
What does this all mean for your business? Quite simply that for a company’s IT function to meet its requirement to be up-to-speed on both the business strategy and latest technologies, while supporting users efficiently, outsourcing some or all aspects of IT is a primary consideration. And the Fifosys consulting team is increasingly tailoring outsourcing solutions to deliver significant added value to our clients.
Whether we are working with an existing IT Support department to supplement the skills available or providing the skills and services directly, our common goal is to for our clients to have access to the technology and support that meets their business objectives cost effectively and efficiently.
Working with Nservtech– making your IT add value to your business
From online data backup to first line IT support, individual IT projects delivering applications that can help the business growth, to long-term managed services solutions, Nservtech outsourcing services allow you to take a strategic approach to IT, ensuring your technology is not an impediment to growing your business, but an enabler.
Where we add greatest value is helping you identify where IT outsourcing can best help your business; balancing the requirements, costs, risks and acting as the trusted advisor and objective independent experts now and for the long term.
