Most small businesses start out with the entrepreneur or a small team of employees doing everything from creating the product or service to keeping the books and managing the technology. As businesses grow, however, the workload also grows, and the owners realize that they aren’t able to keep up with changes and operate at optimal efficiency. This is the time to consider which tasks to hire staff to manage and which to contract with another firm to manage. For many reasons, contracting with an infrastructure management services firm often makes sense.
Perhaps the top reason for outsourcing infrastructure management is that technology improves and changes so rapidly that a team of experts is needed to stay up to date. Outsourcing allows businesses to build a highly specialized team efficiently, according to Entrepreneur magazine. Many infrastructure management services companies require their employees to have and maintain certifications that require continual retraining, according to Small Business Trends. By outsourcing, a company avoids the expense of this training. Because infrastructure management services firms work with many clients, they also have amassed knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work in various settings, meaning they can help companies avoid mistakes that lead to security breaches or network failure.
Businesses should always consider outsourcing non-core functions, according to Forbes. The second reason to outsource infrastructure management, then, is to allow time for owners and key staff to focus on improving and marketing their core product or service instead of solving hardware or software issues, according to the HuffPost. This will bring much more value to the business over the long term. By outsourcing non-core functions, management also finds time to develop strategic plans that will enable the company to continue to grow.
Outsourcing infrastructure management also allows the company to scale back or to scale up easily as needed, without having to hire or lay off workers, according to Forbes. Hiring requires time for recruiting and interviewing, and once employees are hired, laying them off may be costly financially as well as emotionally. By making infrastructure management a variable cost, rather than a fixed one, the company improves its ability to respond to market conditions and to make a profit in all economies.
Another reason to outsource is to share the risk with the infrastructure management services firm. This makes the company more agile and dynamic, according to the HuffPost. Finally, outsourcing generally always is more cost-effective than managing the infrastructure in-house, according to Forbes. Employee costs include pay and benefits, as well as the cost of supervision. Contracting costs typically are much less.
Protera Technologies, a global leader in full IT outsourcing for SAP centric organizations and is a highly respected firm specializing in SAP managed services, cloud hosting, and SAP HANA, S/4HANA migrations. Seeking the assistance of an experienced team is your best assurance for an optimized SAP environment. Their website is: https://www.protera.com/