IT Outsourcing for your business
By Staff

IT outsourcing has grown in popularity in recent years around the world. Once thought of as an alternative to in-house solutions for large corporations only, more and more small and medium sized businesses are their IT needs. The main reason for this trend is the cost-effectiveness that outsourcing offers as well as the expert deployment of sound technology strategies. According to recent research conducted by industry analysts, over 50% of all small to medium businesses utilize outsourcing to fulfill their IT needs.

Since the outsourcing trend has shifted to the small to medium business market, they are capitalizing on technology to increase their efficiency by automating processes and streamlining operations. This takes the burden off them as many do not even have an in-house IT person and those that do are overburdened. Small businesses usually have 1 IT person per 25 computers to support and medium businesses usually have 1 IT person per 33 computers. That is a lot for one person to handle. By outsourcing these IT tasks, companies can concentrate on more important business matters while keeping costs low.

IT tasks are composed of various types of services. One such service is web hosting, which an increasing number of small and medium businesses are looking to for their outsourcing needs. This service allows these businesses to have a secure company web site that is more reliable and more importantly scalable. If the trend for outsourcing web hosting continues to rise as is predicted, web host outsourcing will grow to 70% this year alone.

In addition, this market segment is expected to continue to see significant growth over the next five years in the small to medium business sector. This is because demand is on the rise by this market for more complex web site functionality, the rising costs of having an in-house IT group and better outsourcing benefits that are becoming available.

Outsourcing: Total Cost of Ownership

One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing web hosting is the total cost of ownership or TCO. It takes too much of a large investment for small or medium businesses to try to do this in-house. It is therefore more cost effective for them to outsource. If they were to do it in-house they would need an IT staff to support the web site and maintain it. The cost of doing this for smaller businesses is sometimes too inhibitive.

In addition, outsourcing relieves them of the financial burden of having to purchase equipment, software, and set-up costs. On top of that there will be additional costs for upgrades, round the clock technical support , help desks and overall maintenance costs.

With today’s economic climate in a state of flux, it is important for businesses of all sizes to keep an eye on the bottom line and to reduce spending or cut costs wherever possible. By using a web host outsourcing company for their IT needs, companies can stay in business and realize up to an 80% cost savings instead of having in-house IT functions that are too costly to maintain. Outsourcing enables small and medium businesses to expect a TCO that is significantly reduced and improve the company’s overall cash flow by up to 47%.

In addition, the TCO is not the only reason that outsourcing web hosting tasks is so appealing to businesses, it also provides a quicker and more efficient way for smaller businesses to connect to the net. Businesses are assured that they will have a more reliable e-commerce platform and the accountability for the performance of the site falls on the outsource company.

Outsourced web hosting solutions come in a variety of plans and prices. Initial set-up cost can start as low as $20 for a simple set-up and range higher for more complex set-ups. With the lower cost set-up businesses can expect a simple solution that offers a web site and domain name. Higher costing set-ups will provide a more robust plan that includes full management, reporting and security of the hosting solution. This will allow businesses to focus on growth in a fully functional and efficient environment.

Outsourcing packages also give the business additional options to choose from that include increased web site performance and continuity for their business. These service providers can create a plan to meet the needs of any size business. Additional offerings from these providers may include disaster recovery planning, site traffic tracking and reporting, security monitoring, server backups and data storage & retrieval. Reputable web host outsource providers will provide customers with service agreements that clearly define the service provided and include a guarantee that the service will be available full-time and site backup is performed regularly. This eliminated a big drawback for businesses that try to manage their web site internally. When managed in-house, there is no recourse when the site goes down and no guarantees that it will remain functional indefinitely. This could be crucial to the financial stability of the company as the potential for lost sales and customers increases.