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The Pros and Cons of outsourcing IT support – part 2

Majestic CEO Tal Evans continues his discussion on the pros and cons of organisations outsourcing their IT support.

External service providers have access to a broad range of expertise that is readily available to users as needed. This additional flexibility often provides an advantage over an internal-only IT department.

The main advantage of working with an outsourced service provider is that they have far greater knowledge and experience than what most small and medium healthcare or NFP organisations can provide for themselves. Whatever your goal is, whether it’s growth, delivering better services, or something else, you’re far more likely to be able to achieve it with a partner than trying to do everything on your own.

A comprehensive external provider can also advise your organisation on how to drive its investment in technology in the right direction. Applying a strategic approach enables you to get the most out of your investment and the obtain the best possible outcomes.

An organisation also doesn’t require a complete range of IT skills at all times, but when you do need them, it’s economically viable to be able to partner with an external provider. Your provider is able to acquire team members with specialist skillsets as their working efforts are distributed across a number of partners. Your organisation benefits from their economy of scale.

There is, however, a potential downside to bringing in an external provider that’s not living and breathing what it is that you do inside your organisation. There is the potential for increased cost. It can also cause a significant initial investment in time to educate that partner on your organisation and to gain the required level of familiarity or confidence to be able to really work alongside with your chosen provider to deliver the best results.

Both of these potential downsides, if experienced at all, do level off and actually becomes more financially viable over time. In most cases, within a year a well strategised, well implemented service provider will reach the point that it becomes less costly than providing the same service internally. And in the meantime, your organisation is receiving the benefits of that partnership.

Research from Deloitte shows that more than 50% of Australian businesses are outsourcing some, or all, of their IT operations. Has your organisation considered the benefits of strategic outsourcing?

Whereas Australia’s news media has traditionally spotlighted the negative impact of outsourcing offshore, there is an increasing trend of Australian companies instead of turning to domestic suppliers to leverage the additional expertise, skills and experience that they don’t have in-house.

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