IT outsourcing: How the outsourcing of IT activities works

Reading time 4 min

1. Why you should outsource IT activities
2. What is outsourcing exactly?
3. Here's how you can handle IT activities in your company.
4. The advantages of outsourcing
5. Conclusion
6. FAQ: Questions and answers about IT outsourcing
   1. How can companies ensure that IT outsourcing agreements are met?
   2. How can you ensure that your data is secure when using IT outsourcing?

Why you should outsource IT activities

These days, almost every business needs IT in some way. Whether it's for your own website, your own software, internal processes or customer support. Successful companies can't get around technology. But of course, these IT activities are not the core business for many companies, which is why they have hired few or no IT professionals. That makes managing these tasks quite cumbersome. Does this topic sound familiar? Do you and your company have the same problem? Then outsourcing is the solution for you! And we're not just thinking about outsourcing tasks abroad, but more importantly, working with regional service providers. As an e-commerce agency, we at EXWE specialize in setting up individual online stores, e-commerce support including optimization as well as SEO and are happy to take over your company's IT activities. You can find more information about support and service by an e-commerce agency on our website. But now we would like to explain to you why IT outsourcing makes sense for you and what you have to pay attention to - enjoy reading!

What exactly is outsourcing?

The outsourcing of IT activities or IT outsourcing means the transfer of complete IT functions or business areas. The idea is that these tasks are fully responsible in the hands of external service providers who take over the IT activities over a certain period of time.

IT task areas can be divided into three different levels. The first is the assumption of tasks relating to the technological infrastructure. This involves topics such as data centers, servers and clouds. Another level is the application area. Here everything revolves around software, store systems, websites and also the intranet. The third level relates to business processes that are to be solved technologically. This includes accounting, the development of digital products or online marketing.

Of course, not only one level needs to be affected in your company; you may need support on all three levels. But why you don't have to solve everything on-site in your company and what advantages outsourcing brings with it, you can find out now!

This is how you can handle IT activities in your company

Unless you are the CEO of an IT company, it probably makes more sense for you to outsource all activities related to this field. This will save you not only time, but also financial resources. Imagine you are planning an online store for your company, but you don't have any employees with the necessary skills to create it. Then there are three ways you could proceed:

The first option is that you hire employees and assign them to acquire the appropriate knowledge to create the online store afterwards. As a second option, you could start an application process to hire new employees who already have all the necessary skills. Or you can hire an external company that will simply take over these tasks.

As you might guess, all three options have advantages and disadvantages. We start with the first option. This is the big advantage, because all tasks stay in your company. The walking distances are short and you already know the employees who have taken on the task. But the disadvantage is obvious: You can forget about your finished online store for the next few months. It will take some time until your employees are on the level to create a professional online store. And that will cost you a lot of money. It's also questionable whether the online store will end up looking the way you imagined.

The second option, hiring employees with IT skills, is faster, at least compared to the first option. However, the application process can also be lengthy. Also, you should ask yourself what will happen to these employees after you finish creating the online store. Are there still enough tasks for them in your company then?

The last option is to hand over the tasks to an IT service provider who specializes in exactly these tasks. By now you can probably already guess what advantages this has. But we want to show you these and other advantages again:

The advantages of outsourcing

With an IT service provider, you save time that you don't have to spend on employee training or a new application process. This way you also avoid indirect costs. The time you save can be used to expand your core business. You and your employees can concentrate on the really important tasks that are important to you and that move the business forward.

You can also benefit from the expert knowledge of the IT agency. The employees in such an agency deal with the questions and tasks related to the corresponding IT area on a daily basis. They know, for example, how to create a professional web store, which functions are possible and how to manage it afterwards, or they can provide you with the ideal software through individual software development. You can also approach the agency team at any time with questions, problems and wishes. They will actively support you with all their know-how. After all, every technology needs to be serviced, improved and maintained after a certain period of time in order to keep it up to date. Many e-commerce agencies also offer this service. Mostly you will find this service under the terms support, supervision, monitoring and maintenance.

By the way, an external IT service provider also gives you a competitive edge when it comes to technical changes. They can react to changes immediately and you have a contact person who knows exactly what they are doing.

Last but not least, at any point in the project you have full transparency of the costs it has incurred so far. The IT agency can also estimate in advance how high the costs will be. In addition, you also save on expensive hardware and software that you would have had to purchase if the IT activities had been carried out in your company. By involving an external IT agency, you also benefit in the long run, because your outsourcing partner will know your business processes in detail over time. For example, in further steps, individual processes can be digitized and optimized using customized software.

Conclusion

In any case, it is worthwhile to sit down with an external service provider to get advice. How can your ideas be implemented? How long will the implementation take? And what does the price look like? All these questions can be answered in a consultation. Are you interested in an online store creation and the support of your e-commerce or do you need a strong partner in the area of software development? Then EXWE is the right place for you. Contact us and we will advise you over a cup of coffee and start your IT outsourcing project!