How to Know If You Should Outsource IT as a Startup Company

January 19, 2021

The concept of outsourcing is nothing new to the world of technology. There was a time when the idea of “onshoring” was trendy. But the quality and efficiency of talent from anywhere around the world can make a company’s core product and business stronger. This concept is commonly referred to as “outsourcing”.

There are many advantages for a startup company to consider outsourcing its IT operations. Some of these include lower overhead costs and quicker technological integration. Every startup has to define the reason for its IT outsourcing needs and decide if certain requirements are in its best interest.

While it is important for any company to consider all sides of this outsourcing question, there are some signs that you can consider before making a strategic decision. This guide will help to show you what your business needs are before contracting the IT services of a provider.

Benefits to Consider Outsourcing IT

Your team often has deadlines to meet and may also be working on a variety of tasks with limited time on hand for other things. Outsourcers have the tools readily available and often possess the latest information about the market to help companies get more innovative faster. In such a case, outsourcing IT is an attractive idea. Here are a few
other benefits to consider outsourcing IT.

  1. Speed to market:

    Decreasing your speed to market gives you a competitive advantage when it comes to creativity and innovation because it allows you to reach customers with new services and products before others in the industry.

  2. Expert assistance:

    Without a full in-house team capable of meeting all your technological requirements, it can be difficult to have all the expertise that you need. Outsourcing allows you the benefit of having experts in specific niche fields to increase your windows of opportunity.

  3. Solve business goals:

    You can use cross-functional teams in outsourcing endeavors to plan and design your digital transformation efforts. Functional experts in areas such as IT and even operations, strategy, and research and development can all work together in an agile environment to coordinate efforts and solve for achieving business goals.

  4. Mature talent accessibility:

    When the right people are around your startup organization’s table, the possibilities are endless. Outsourcing your technology so you can focus on your core business often gives you access to significant talent capital that you may not have access to until several years down the line.

  5. Reduces implementation complexity:

    Let’s say you need to have cloud services, a mobile application, and a customer interface. To get the full benefit of this would take a single suite of solutions which would reduce the complexity of implementing multiple processes from multiple vendors.

    These five benefits along with the cost savings potential and active management throughout the process can be critical and useful when deciding whether or not Outsourcing your company’s IT is a good idea. Startups rarely have all the core competencies to run every aspect of their business from the start.

    But onboarding a team of people via an outsourced environment can allow for barriers to innovation to be removed and your business to strategically grow as you focus on core business functions and delegate the non-core business functions, especially if this is not your company’s purpose.

Benefits of Having an In-House Team

While there are many great advantages to Outsourcing your company’s IT team, it could be beneficial to look at the other side of having an in-house team to take care of your IT needs.

Here are some of those benefits:

  • Knowledge retention:

    This is the process of identifying critical knowledge points unique to your business. With an in-house team, you are less likely to be at risk of loss with niche aspects to your technology and can prioritize based on knowledge gaps and deficiencies. Once you make these identifications, you can develop action plans to retain new learnings.

  • Easier collaboration:

    Unless you are dedicated to having daily scrum calls with an outsourced IT team, an in-house team provides easy accessibility to work together and collaborate. Problems can be solved at a faster rate and new ideas can be brought to the table and implementing at a more realistic rate.

  • Culture fit:

    As with any type of team, you have the authority to pick those who fit with your company’s culture and align with your company’s goals and values. The people you choose to be on your team will likely care about your product and be willing to work overtime if needed to get it to where it needs to go.

    As with any type of team, you have the authority to pick those who fit with your company’s culture and align with your company’s goals and values. The people you choose to be on your team will likely care about your product and be willing to work overtime if needed to get it to where it needs to go.

When Should You Outsource?

Sometimes, outsourcing will become very evident and necessary within the general discourse of understanding your business needs. If you are not sure yet, here are some signs that may lead you to a better decision.

  • When IT is negatively impacting business operations.
  • When there is a significant skills gap within the organization.
  • When the time to market of a product is the #1 priority.
  • When you have a high turnover of IT professionals.
  • When your project requires significant and specific expertise.
  • When IT is not your core business or competency.
  • When it is more of a commodity than a competitive advantage.
  • When it simply makes sense.

Final Thought

As a startup company, it is highly important that you spend the majority of your time not only working on your business but working on your core business. This is especially true for non-IT-related businesses who need to stay focused on creative endeavors and remaining on the cutting edge.

At Inventive IT, we understand the need to have top-rate IT operations and a highly skilled team behind you at all times and for a fraction of the cost and time, it would take your in-house team. That’s why we specialize in providing full IT development and management services to startup organizations.

Our goal is to not just be a company but be a technology partner to the startup community, giving you the time and resources that you need to succeed at tech and innovate your business far into the future.

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