How Can Outsourcing Help You Business?

Running a business involves a seemingly never ending list of tasks that need to be done just to keep the lights on. When you’re inundated with these chores, it’s difficult to find time to create, innovate and improve. That’s why you hire others to do some of these tasks for you.

It’s the same with your IT department. Rather than spend their time on meneal, day-to-day maintenance tasks, consider outsourcing services by using cloud computing and a managed service provider. Patrick Zelten, of Baseline Magazine suggests some things to consider before deciding on outsourcing.

• Diagnose your needs

Just because it’s possible to use a managed service to save your company time doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Before making any decisions, think about the day-to-day operations of your business. For any service you’d like to outsource, you need to know how critical it is to you operations. How sensitive is the data shared? Are their advantages to handling this service internally? And, be sure to have a goal for what you hope to accomplish by outsourcing. 

• Know your employees capabilities

Another factor in determining what needs to be outsourced is knowing the expertise of your employees. If a system is easily managed by your current staff without being a time burden, then it likely doesn’t need to be managed by a third-party, regardless of other factors. If, however, it will take dedicated time to learning how the system should be run, and keeping up with updates and new functions constantly, then using a managed service provider would save time and money. 

• Managed, Co-managed or Cloud

Choosing managed services allows you to retain control. It’s almost like adding additional IT personnel. Applications are divided between you and your managed service provider. The two groups will work closely, which can sometimes lead to problems. 

Co-managing is similar, but rather than completely turning over some of your IT tasks, both your staff and the managed service provider work together on the same applications. This provides flexibility, and the ability to easily scale up or down.

Using a cloud system allows you to get started almost immediately and also allows for quick changes in scale. Your cloud provider will handle the set-up and maintenance, so the services you outsource will be continuously updated. This model is less secure than others, however, so what you choose to put in the cloud should be a careful decision.

Outsourcing the right services and applications takes the strain off your company. For help deciding which model is right for you and what the cloud or managed services will do, contact Geek Rescue at 918-369-4335.