Outsourcing is often seen as a taboo topic by aspiring entrepreneurs. On one hand outsourcing is great for reducing overhead, something any smart business leader wants. On the other, it’s consistently cited as one of the most disliked aspects of modern free enterprise. In matters of moving manufacturing from a company’s homeland to another nation for the sole-purpose of shaving some numbers off the end-of-year balance sheet, the subject remains hotly controversial. But for small businesses looking to save big on startup costs and management, outsourcing the IT wing of their enterprise is not only a smart way to rub-out unnecessary expenses, it’s not as wicked a move as they may think.
Here’s five reasons why outsourcing IT is good for entrepreneurs big and small:
- Faster: Off-site IT management services chock-full of experience and dedicated infrastructure are going to operate much faster than the typically dinky, greenhorn, and grassroots efforts of self-operating equivalents seen in small businesses. Hitting the ground running is crucial to startup success, and technical snags are one of the leading causes of small enterprise stalls. Investing instead in a remote IT service helps maintain momentum, quickening growth and avoiding sluggish responses to problems.
- Cheaper: This element of outsourcing is typically at the forefront of most thoughts on the benefits of the practice. In matters of outsourcing IT specifically, the cost-savings are obvious. No investing in your own tech department, nor employing your own IT workers. The very fact you don’t need the space for servers and work stations may even be enough to reduce your enterprise to a completely virtual existence, forgoing brick-and-mortar costs altogether.
- Predictable: The rate of your future growth as a business is, at best, barely predictable and rarely predicted rightly. The demands in which such ups and downs can have on your departments can be daunting, and IT is no exception. Handing off the majority if not all of your IT responsibilities to specialists can allow you to focus on the rapid changes without worrying about altering your infrastructure in the process.
- Not All-or-Nothing: Small businesses with much of their existence steeped in the digital world don’t have to hand over the tech duties with ties to executive decision-making over to a third-party. Many off-site IT management services allow companies to pick-and-choose which elements they’d like outsourced. It’s no sweat to opt for managed file transfer software, for example, but maintain a direct connection to web development.
- Not as ‘Bad': Outsourcing has a notorious reputation for being destructive to a company’s homeland economy. But in matters of outsourced information technology services, it’s often the case for companies to find cost-effective solutions on native soil. Outsourcing doesn’t always involve taking a job from country A and moving it to country B. Sometimes it’s simply hiring another company, perhaps in another state or county, to handle a workload better alleviated from your small business.
Small businesses and start-ups face tremendous hurdles in the race to success. The energy required to make it there – capital – isn’t limitless. The potential for injury – business snags – will inevitably occur. Conserving the former and reducing risk for the latter is critical, and one of the smarter ways to do this is to outsource IT duties. It allows business leaders to increase productivity, save money, and focus exclusively on the tasks at hand unique to their market or industry. Additionally, outsourcing doesn’t have to be as controversial a technique as one might think.
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