One of the biggest dilemmas of companies when making their work processes faster, refers to adopting software development internally – and put it under the responsibility of the Information Technology (IT) team – or bet on partnerships with companies of IT outsourcing.
The option “in-company” is common in organizations that value the importance of having total control over the tools that are used in the operations. For that purpose, they have to bear the costs coming from the selection and hiring of professionals, the payment of salary and labor charging, as well as the spending with the benefits policy offered to the workers.
However, the use of outsourcing makes the organization spend less with this process, and it even has the advantage of enabling the internal team to dedicate more time to the central activities of the business. On the other hand, it is essential that the external team understands the organization’s culture and the available infrastructure.
Having that in mind, we can see that this decision requires an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of these models. In this post, you will get to know better about the benefits of transferring this work to specialized companies. We invite you to come along with us!
Advantages of the outsourcing in IT
Before choosing to have a bet on outsourcing, it is imperative that the organization defines its objectives in relation to the development of software. That helps to better understand the necessities of the company, and by doing so, also evaluating them in a more comprehensive way.
Reduction of costs
When the company opts for setting up partnerships with companies outsourcing in IT, it eliminates the costs with the hiring, training and qualification of professionals; as well as the costs with the acquisition of hardware and software, the physical structure needed to allocate the group and the equipment and with the management of the process.
All these costs are the responsibility of the organization which is going to provide the solution. So the company now pays for the service done by the provider. By doing the calculations, we can see that the costs are usually inferior in a long, medium or even in a short term.
Expertise
The companies that are specialized in outsourcing of software development, in general, have teams of experienced professionals in solving problems involving this type of activity. Besides, it is common that these providers have access to the state-of-the-art technologies available in the market.
Yet, it is fundamental that these specialists understand well the client’s needs so that both the planning and the execution of the project occur in the most natural way possible. In order for that to happen, it is very important that the provider and the client act together in all the stages of the development of the tool.
Flexibility
When a company develops its software internally, it can have difficulties, in case it starts to develop rapidly or other needs emerge, such as changing the way the internal operations work. In such situations, it might be necessary to adapt all the IT structure (both the group and the machinery).
If there are partnerships with companies outsourcing in IT, however, the organization obtains flexibility in this aspect. The providers have more conditions to adapt the systems and solutions fast, according to the variation in the amount of trade done. In that way, the client just needs to request some adapting from the provider to the new context, so that the provider himself has a dimension of the groups and the resources that are necessary.
Updating
Updating is another highly significant advantage of the outsourcing in IT. Independent of internal or external development of the software, it is fundamental to make sure it is always updated – after all, that is extremely important for the organization’s clients.
When the company has an internal development, the employees themselves are then responsible for that updating. In outsourcing, however, the provider’s group has to be responsible to care about that. Meanwhile, the client’s group can dedicate to the main processes of the organization.
Innovation
Along with the outsourced development of software, the innovation can be clearly seen in the result. That occurs because the provider of solutions keeps his/her groups always updated on the newest technologies and the news concerning the operational processes.
At the same time, the client is able to dedicate more time and human resources to their internal methodologies. That, in itself, favors innovation since the improvement on the use of professionals’ abilities inside an IT company plays a fundamental role in this process.
Security and control
It is common that the companies opt for keeping the software development internal due to a fear that the access of their internal corporative information raises more problems than solutions (since this information is, most of the time, confidential). That is why they prefer to have more control over the material management (software and hardware) used by the team.
In that manner, a lot of organizations believe on the essentiality of this information to be restricted to their internal systems. That is because when they invest in partnerships with companies that outsource IT, they are dealing with providers that at least have different aims on business – after all, they are different companies.
Choosing this alternative, however, does not mean abandoning the safety of the information. On the contrary, these service providers are usually certified by specific safety rules and use advanced tools of data protection. That is also a precaution for themselves.
In order to grant security, one of the common practices of this market is to avoid hiring providers that render or have already rendered services to competition.
Competitive advantage
The above characteristics of outsourcing confer more efficiency and productivity on the development of software solutions since the work is carried out by experienced professionals that already know the market. As they have frequent and easy access to new technologies and the segments’ trends, it becomes easier for them to create a solution that enables the client to obtain competitive advantages.
Having in mind the fact that the company wins both in the operational and financial aspects, it becomes more innovative and efficient. Besides, it receives an additional benefit: the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is capable of predicting and planning better the investments that are to be done.
How about you? Are you already prepared to take the decision of establishing a partnership with an IT outsourcing company? Or are you still in doubt about what is the best option for your organization? So, get in contact with us, clarify your doubts and discover how we can help you!
Translation: Tatiana Bauso
