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The Five Huge Benefits of Outsourcing IT

May 25, 2016 by Lore Engineering Team

Say you have a smaller company, and you are eager to expand quickly. You need the help of IT professionals, but you just don’t have the capital to hire them or the human resources needed to train them. Or maybe you are a larger company, but you have a one-off project that requires expertise you just don’t have. This is where outsourcing can help.

While handing over an important part of your company to an outsider may seem risky, many companies have chosen outsourcing as a wise and easy tactic that will ultimately allow them to reap innumerable benefits for their businesses. So let’s take a look at how it works and why it is such a popular choice for businesses of every size.

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing refers to the process of engaging a third-party company to handle non-core business processes that would otherwise be performed by internal employees. This is a familiar concept in most organizations, particularly as companies offer these services reliably at competitive prices from offshore locations. While many are understandably nervous about the risks involved in contracting a third party, the benefits are numerous and varied, outweighing any possible negative aspects. Payroll and bookkeeping are among the most frequently outsourced processes, but as of the past decade or so, IT operations have experienced high levels of outsourcing as well.

The Five Huge Benefits

Outsourcing IT has been popularized due to the variety of benefits it can provide for large and small companies alike. Some major benefits include:

1. Lower IT Costs

The most obvious benefit for companies is reduced IT operating expense expense. Outsourcing converts fixed IT expenses to variable ones, further reducing expenditures and liberating funds so they can be allocated to other parts of the business. And by not having to train internal IT staff, you’re saving human resources cost as well.

2. More Time to Focus on Your Core Areas

Outsourcing any service— from IT to payroll centers— means allows organizations to focus all their time and energy on core business issues and goals. Rather than being distracted by complex IT decisions, they are able to take these resources and deploy them more effectively. This extra focus on core business allows companies to run more smoothly on a day-to-day basis, as management avoids getting bogged down in less important matters.

3. Increased Efficiency

Outsourcing also promotes increased efficiency, as external vendors have developed specialized equipment, business, process and best practice over years of experience needed to get things done quickly and in a competent manner. Training in-house professionals requires time and resources. Plus, in-house staff seldom maintain their certifications or stay current on the latest technologies. This problem is eliminated through outsourcing, as new technologies can be implemented quickly and without allocating additional resources to training.

In addition, outsourcing levels the playing field and grants a competitive edge to smaller companies who cannot implement their own systems because they don’t have the resources of larger ones. IT implementations will be done faster, better, and more inexpensively than using in-house talent. Outsourcing companies maintain expertise with cutting edge technologies so they are an invaluable resource to their customers.

4. Specialization

Outsourcing providers are extremely well-versed in their industry, to an extent impossible for the average in-house IT department. They are well-informed about new technology, new social media platforms, and new bugs and defense systems, all of which they deal with on an everyday basis. Staying on top of all of this would be difficult or impossible for the average in-house IT department. This is of particular importance for businesses involved with online transactions, as they must comply to PCI Security Standards. By ensuring you have the latest security software and everything is up to date, outsourcing can ensure the security of your information, as well as your company’s compliance with the relevant security requirements.

5. Ensuring Compliance and Staying up-to-date on Latest Tech

As specialists, third-party outsourcing companies like Lore Systems can reduce risk not only by ensuring compliance to the previously mentioned and ever changing security standards, and by staying on top of issues in government regulations, new technology, cyber security, and market competition. As this is their area of expertise, they understand how breakthroughs in technology and acquired expertise can help mitigate risks and save money. They are much better equipped to deal with the rapid daily changes that occur in the industry. In addition, these companies are experienced at managing the demands of the contracting organization and are sensitive to increasingly globalized company requirements due to years of dealing with firms across the globe.

While many companies are hesitant to outsource IT, they could potentially benefit greatly via the expertise of their outsourced IT partner, and achieve reduced risk, greater uptime, easier IT deployments, more efficiency, and reduced costs.

Lore Systems is a leading provider of network engineering, virtual CIO and outsourced IT services in the Washington, DC, northern Virginia, and suburban Maryland region. Please contact us to learn if outsourcing any part of your IT might be a good decision. (Link)