Numerous cases appear where businesses are seen managing several simple and complex tasks on their own and end up losing control over the market. These businesses have realized that ‘one size fits all’ or ‘one-stop shop’ business strategies are outdated and irrelevant. Therefore, in recent times, businesses are opting for outsourcing services including IT.

As compared to cons various pros are associated with outsourcing that can transform your business environment completely. Outsourcing enables businesses to stay firm, confident, and updated in the competitive IT industry and ensure their globally dominant digital presence.

Around 30% of businesses in the USA outsource IT services and share a good bonding with their outsourcing partner. Livyoung Realtech Enterprise is one of the best IT outsourcing providers. Along with offering robust technical services to businesses across the globe, we provide additional resources pertaining to their critical and unique IT industry.

What is an IT Outsourcing Provider?

An IT Outsourcing Provider is none but a third-party organization that helps companies in IT-related matters, ranging from providing beneficial IT consultations, monitoring, and backup services to adding effective IT resources to the companies’ already existing pack of resources. In contrast to an in-house team that incorporates IT, and staff that works under the control of the hiring company, IT outsourcing providers work as third-party organizations whose primary role is to satisfy the IT demands of its clients as per their demand, need, or contract.

Outsourcing can be of different types on the basis of the needs of a business:

• Onshore or domestic outsourcing- It means the outsourcing partner will belong to the same country, be it remotely or on-premise.
• Offshore outsourcing- It means that the outsourcing partner will belong to a foreign country and offers IT services at affordable rates and fewer tax charges.
• Nearshore outsourcing- It means that the outsourcing partner will belong to the nearby location of the hiring company and provides similar benefits as offshore outsourcing.

Among the multidimensional services covered by us, Livyoung Realtech Enterprise, app and software development, helpdesk and consultation support, data backup and storage management services, etc. are the most prominent ones.

How Does Outsourcing IT Help Companies?

Despite the business size and verticals, outsourcing IT from a third party helps the business to gain a lot of benefits. Some of these are:

Cost: The cost of management of the in-house team is higher than the hired outsourcing IT service provider. From recruitment, retainment, payroll taxes, and infrastructure to other support such as health insurance and further benefits, building qualified teams in-house won’t be a good option. What an in-house team can do, after an investment of a huge sum of money, outsourcing does the same (sometimes even more) at half the price paid to the in-house team. Therefore, companies, these days, outsource IT.

Scalability & Flexibility: The choice of scaling teams for a particular IT project depends on the business. Based on the demand of hands for a project, you can add or subtract team members. On the contrary, such flexibility in addition and subtraction isn’t available in an in-house team. An ample amount of time and cost will be involved to get the work done.

Access to Talent: Third-party organizations offer businesses a pool of talent that is professionally sound. Hiring specialized IT teams in-house will cost you more than expected. IT outsourcing companies provide both quantity and quality-proven talent.

When is it Time to Outsource IT?

Follow the following queries to know the exact time to outsource IT for the betterment of your business:

1. Is IT taking up a lot of time?

A company cannot handle the dynamics of its business processes. It will require help from a third-party, especially when it comes to the IT industry. The role of an outsourcing IT service provider is to take off the burden of handling IT-related issues from the company. These IT experts share the workload of the in-house team and ensure that they aren’t overloaded with expertise that doesn’t come under their domain.

1. Are tech operations running as smoothly as possible?

If the business takes care of all IT issues like its efficiency, management, risks, cause of risk, consequences of risk, and so on, then the problems will never get resolved. IT outsourcing companies hire IT professionals who are specialized in IT tasks and other matters. Businesses can keep calm when their IT assets and resources are managed by these outsourcing IT service providers.

1. Are IT professionals required all the time?

Whether a business needs full-time specialized IT services from a third-party or partial help for a limited time frame, primarily depends on the demands of the project. The cost of assistance differs according to the needs of the company and the requirements of their project.

What to Outsource?

Well, the choice of what to outsource solely depends on the business- its complexity, manpower, budget, and interest. Not all businesses are the same, which means, each business possesses its own unique strengths and complications. To handle those complications, you might require some amount of help, if not all. The entry of your outsourcing partner happens right at that moment.

Again, we, at times, lack manpower or professionals that can aptly handle an issue or take care of a specific task. Outsourcing works as a boon. As the outsourcing company incorporates a pool of talent, you need to keep high trust in them while outsourcing IT services.

Finally, your budget and interest determine which type of task needs to be outsourced. Each outsourcing company’s price demands vary based on the intricacies of the services. A small business may not afford to outsource every other business task as they’ve to manage everything with a small budget. However, it doesn’t imply that a large business, having a huge budget, will only invest in outsourcing all tasks.

A business, irrespective of its size, must identify the key reasons behind outsourcing a specific task. Given below are the most vital tasks that businesses mostly outsource:

• Specialized skill: Having a full-time IT employee will cost you more than you’re asked to pay for specialized knowledge like an accounting system, network, and more to your outsourcing partner. In fact, the latter option comes with the advantage of changing your partner as and when your IT needs change.
• Repetitive tasks: Certain repetitive tasks like accounts payable, data entry and shipping inventory etc. need to be outsourced to an experienced IT partner in order to ensure regular maintenance.
• Skilled expertise: With the right partner, you can afford to have a timely visit of, for instance, a CFO-level expert in your company who’ll provide monthly financial analysis, instead of paying for a full-time CFO at your company.

Finding the right IT outsourcing partner

Before trusting any partner with confidential info about your business, it is your logical responsibility to choose the right IT outsourcing partner. The advancements in the technological sector have been making it easy to find a reliable outsourcing partner, but the process of selection must be multi-layered with different steps.

There are 11 steps guide how to choose an outsourcing partner:

1. Define the size of your project

Based on the size of your project, you can make right decision of going for either outsourcing a company or a freelancer. If, let’s say, your in-house employees encounter hurdle in handling some parts of your large project, then approaching an IT outsourcing company will be a good option. Because they incorporate experienced and skillful IT experts the troublesome tasks of the project can be handled easily.

However, small projects lack much complications and are easily managed by the in-house team itself. Nevertheless, in rare cases, you might require expert help. A freelancer will be the right choice and you must ensure that the tasks and interfaces are distinctly defined.

2. Explore the limits of skills and expertise

The second most significant step is to explore the skills and expertise limitations of the outsourcing partner. Experts reveal that research of an outsourcing company before selecting one is very significant. Trusting other party becomes easier once you discover their strengths and weaknesses.

You can do research on topics like- number, nature and outcome of projects undertaken by your potential outsourcing partner to check if there is any similarity with your proposed project; recommendations by other clients; satisfaction rate of the clients and more.

3. Contact past and present clients

In continuation of the previous point- you can contact past and present clients of your outsourcing partner. Knowing the background and current status of your partner is evitable for running your business efficiently and for further clarity.

You can surf internet to check the ratings, reviews, and diversity of projects of your potential outsourcing partner. The final decision of selecting right IT outsourcing company must be preceded by these processes.

4. Check reliability

Checking reliability before jumping into decision-making is extremely important. There are certain ways to check your outsourcing partner’s resilient and reliable nature:

For instance, you can find out its inception as an outsourcing company or freelancer, or know its experience in the field of outsourcing, its relationship with past clients, past clients’ reviews, or feedback, carefully go through the offered contractual conditions and regulations.

5. Inspect project management system

It is important to inspect project management and organization system. The choice of whether working with an individual IT expert (dedicated project manager) or a full-fledged company is upon you. Getting an initial estimate for a preliminary budget unavoidably helps you to speculate the journey with your outsourcing partner.

6. Establish the framework conditions

It is essential to establish a specific project’s framework conditions. The project’s documentation work is highly necessary to keep oneself and the other party on secured position. To highlight a few points- you can double-check the number of experts involved, who is assigned which roles, process/channel/medium of communication, usage of any technical platform and more.

If there is no convenient arrangement or denial to make agreement (from other side), there’s some problem. DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER.

7. Evaluate cost and volatility

Evaluation of cost and volatility is mandatory. Without estimating the price to be invested on getting the project done, it’ll be a total mismanagement of business project work. A precise picture of overall budget will help you proceed with, plan and estimate the prospect.

The average rate of a back-end develop for an hour is roughly $47. However, the price varies from company to company depending on your demands and project’s complexity or volatility. There is need for understanding between you and your outsourcing partner.

8. Be aware of risks

The project may be small or big but one thing is common and that is RISK. You must double-check what type of mechanisms applied during risk management by your outsourcing partner, whether risks such as loss of data, no backup facility, data breach, security intervention, illegal access etc. are tackled and more.

Instant remedy must be available or a minor breach will ruin your entire hard work of building magnificent business. Like they say, precaution is better than cure- we follow the same principle.

9. Arrange the means of communication

First and foremost, the project manager must be known and few meetups should be arranged. Defining uninterrupted means of communication is vital for avoiding wrong or unclear encoding and decoding instructions related to your project.

The sender and receiver of information must use convenient platform to ensure that no confusion prevails over the smooth communication method. This works as a ticketing system where updates are posted/highlighted, issues are communicated and more.

10. Secure the deadline

After reviewing the past performance of your potential outsourcing company, you can easily discover whether your selected partner respects deadline. As you’re answerable to your customers, the targets need to be met on time. However, in case, some discrepancies are there, that ought to be resolved immediately.

11. Ask for support

Simple implementation won’t do. Maintenance and full-time support of the IT services outsourcing partner are fundamental to run the business without obstacles. Long-term relationship can be guaranteed after long-term support.

Livyoung Realtech Enterprise

We, at Livyoung Realtech Enterprise, have been providing dynamic IT services to our clients for the past 10 years. We incorporate a team of IT experts that incessantly work to help you build a better business and remain at the top.

With the change of time, our team update themselves and imbibe new methods and techniques. Our sole focus is to unburden you with IT problems and assist you to stay focus in core business matter.  We’re, according to our clients, the most “reliable and ideal” IT services outsourcing company in town.