Whether you are a startup or a long-established company you might want to investigate the advantages of hiring an IT outsourcing company. These companies offer Managed It services, that is they manage all your IT requirements.
We have discussed the pros and cons of outsourcing your IT (granted it’s mostly pros!), but what decision-making factors should one analyse before deciding whether to outsource and who to outsource to?
Firstly one must see what service is required. A simple update of a web application, a network rehaul or continuous support? These are all factors that fall within IT outsourcing. Secondly, once one has decided what works to be done, it would be wise to query whether the company being chosen to Manage your IT services has the resources and know-how to carry on the work to completion without major issues.
Attributes to Look for While Hiring An IT Outsourcing Company
Planning and after delivery
One of the most important things to look into is a strategic plan for after the works are completed. Various companies start and finish the work without offering any support or maintenance agreements after the work is finished. A serious company believes in its work, and knows that it can support the work it did, so will find now issues in agreeing in maintaining the work they have done.
Experience
Experience and a wide portfolio are significant criteria when outsourcing your IT. You might want to check their website, or else ask for a portfolio and example of work done. This is essential. Let’s put it this way. You would not trust your car to be services by someone who barely knows what a spanner is!
This is the same thing with outsourcing your IT. Make sure the company or individual knows the work they’re doing. Ask for their portfolio, and if possible speak to some of their clients.
Capability
It encompasses a lot of things. If we extend to ICT then we are almost looking at anything that is not human or real estate in a business. ICT stand for information and communications technology. In short in involves anything from telephones, to CCTV cameras and from a computer to a network rack.
No individual is experienced in all these fields. By having your typical IT guy who thinks and acts like he knows it all, you are opening yourself to huge cost and trouble. To keep to the car example; you wouldn’t trust your mechanic to do a spray job on your car would you? And just because he’s also good at spraying cars it does not mean he can fix your refrigerator at home. Although this sounds absurd it is the case with some IT people. They are experienced in coding, but in order to draw in clients they will go for any job involving anything from software to network installation.
No one is great at all things.
Outsourcing to a company instead of an individual has huge advantages. For one, the company will employ a number of employees who have expertise in particular segments. So you will be paying one source for know-how in various areas, and secondly a company will probably have already done a similar job. So they will not use you as a learning experience.
These are just a couple of aspects that one needs to look at before outsourcing their IT function. There are more factors which one can take into consideration, however the most important things are reliability, know-how and long term vision.
