IT outsourcing: How the outsourcing of IT activities works

Reading time 4 min

1. Why you should outsource IT activities
2. What exactly is outsourcing?
3. How you can take care of 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 fulfilled?
   2. How can you ensure that your data is secure when using IT outsourcing?

Why you should outsource IT activities

Nowadays, almost every company needs IT in some way. Whether it's for your own website, software, internal processes or customer support. Successful companies cannot avoid 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 specialists. This makes managing these tasks rather laborious. 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 above all about 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 and SEO and are happy to take over your company's IT activities. You can find more information about support and assistance from an e-commerce agency on our website. But first, we would like to explain why IT outsourcing makes sense for you and what you need to look out for - enjoy reading!

What exactly is outsourcing?

The outsourcing of IT activities or IT outsourcing refers to the transfer of complete IT functions or business areas. This involves placing these tasks fully in the hands of external service providers who take on the IT activities over a certain period of time.

IT tasks 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. The second level is the application area. This is all about software, store systems, websites and the intranet. The third level relates to business processes that are to be solved technologically. This includes accounting, the development of digital products and online marketing.

Of course, not only one level has to be affected in your company; you may need support on all three levels. Find out now why you don't have to solve everything locally in your company and what advantages outsourcing brings!

How you can take care of IT activities in your company

If you are not the managing director of an IT company, it probably makes more sense for you to outsource all activities relating to this field. This will not only save you time, but also financial resources. Imagine you are planning an online store for your company, but you don't yet 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 task them with acquiring the relevant knowledge to then create the online store. As a second option, you could start an application process to hire new employees who already have all the necessary skills. Or you could hire an external company to simply take over these tasks.

As you can probably guess, all three options have advantages and disadvantages. Let's start with the first option. This has the major advantage that all tasks remain within your company. The distances are short and you already know the employees who have taken on the task. However, the disadvantage is obvious: you can forget about your finished online store for the next few months. It will take some time before your employees are up to the level of creating a professional online store. And that will of course cost you a lot of money. It is also questionable whether the online store will end up looking the way you imagined it.

The second option, hiring employees with IT skills, is faster, at least compared to the first option. However, the application process can still be lengthy. You should also ask yourself what will happen to these employees once they have finished creating the online store. Will there still be enough tasks for them in your company?

The last option is to hand over the tasks to an IT service provider that specializes in precisely these tasks. You can probably already guess the advantages of this by now. But let's take another look at these and other advantages:

The advantages of outsourcing

With an IT service provider, you save time that you don't have to invest in employee training or a new application process. This also indirectly avoids 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 drive the business forward.

You can also benefit from the expert knowledge of the IT agency. The employees in such an agency deal with questions and tasks relating to the relevant IT area on a daily basis. For example, they know how to create a professional web store, which functions are possible and how it is subsequently managed or can provide you with the ideal software for you through individual software development. You can also approach the agency's team at any time with questions, problems and requests. They will actively support you with all their know-how. After all, every technology needs to be maintained, improved and updated over time in order to keep it up to date. Many e-commerce agencies also offer this service. You will usually find this service under the terms support, care, monitoring and maintenance.

Incidentally, 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, you have full transparency of the costs incurred so far at all times during the project. 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 will also benefit in the long term, as your outsourcing partner will get to know your business processes in detail over time. For example, individual processes can be digitized and optimized in further steps using individual software.

Conclusion

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