Why Businesses are Outsourcing Their IT Needs Like Never Before

We probably don’t need to say this, but we will – business as usual no longer exists. It was slowly fading away before 2020, but the pandemic has radically accelerated things.

In the Before Times, smart businesses were shifting many roles to outsourced teams. When implemented correctly, this arrangement confers many advantages to their users. However, now that COVID-19 has arrived, stranglers can no longer limp along. If they insist on doing business the way they always have, their enterprises may not survive.

Cash is short. Nimble competitors are grabbing market share. To hang on, more businesses than ever before are turning to managed IT service firms for help.

How can tech outsourcing companies extend a lifeline to your business? Below, we’ll discuss how they can quickly improve the viability of your company.

They Can Strengthen Your Cash Position

COVID broadsided many companies when it arrived on the scene. On paper, the economy looked to be in great shape. However, ballooning debt – student, consumer, housing, and so forth – was holding back real growth.

As a nation, we are uniquely reliant on consumer spending. In 2019, goods and services spending accounted for about 70% of GDP. At the same time, business costs were rising. With unemployment at 3.5% in February 2020, wages were starting to climb.

Then, out of right field, came the Coronavirus. Within weeks, spending fell off a cliff. According to the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve, spending tanked 6.6% YoY in March, and a terrifying 12.6% YoY in April.

Since then, Congress has provided some level of relief. They did launch the PPP loan program, but even then, help was slow in coming. Many businesses had to take matters into their own hands – and fast – to head off insolvency.

Some firms have opted to replace their in-house teams with reliable IT support that’s affordable. To highlight the savings, let’s look at the market in Washington, DC. There, hiring a two-person IT team will set your company back $233,000 on average. Meanwhile, an IT outsourcing firm can provide comparable service for about $100 per person per month.

If you employ 40 people, that’s an annual spend of roughly $48,000. In a year, your firm would net an extra $185,000 in cash reserves. For many companies, a cushion that size can mean the difference between life and death.

They Can Assist Your In-House IT Team

While many sectors are suffering, some are actually booming. For example, certain pharmaceutical and healthcare niches are experiencing growth, as are those who are adjacent. However, as this has happened, their networking needs have also surged.

As a result, escalating workloads has outpaced the ability of reliable in-house IT Support teams to handle them effectively. To avoid burnout while scaling rapidly, firms have brought in outsourced IT teams to help. Managed IT service firms employ technicians around-the-clock. Because of this, in-house techs no longer have to work longer hours, or remain “on-call” while they are supposed to be off-duty.

You Want To Focus On Your Core Competencies

Growth-orientated companies minimize time wasted on tasks secondary to their mission. They want their programming team focused on coding their next killer app, not helping Judy from Accounting log in for the 20th time.

By bringing in a managed IT services team, they can take time-consuming (but necessary) tasks off the plate of in-house employees. That way, the outsourced IT team can handle tedious chores like network maintenance while your prime talent focuses on crushing it.

You Can’t Afford A Network Failure

Sometimes, we can forget how scary the internet is. For all the progress we’ve made, it still resembles the Wild West in many ways. Seasoned cybercriminals lurk in the dark corners of the web. Every day, they case, probe, and attack targets.

When these hackers succeed, the damage they cause can be devastating. According to a White House report, cyber criminals caused between $57 to $109 billion in damages in 2016 alone. An Accenture survey also revealed that the average cyberattack caused $1.1 to $1.4 million in damages to affected firms.

These figures represent a financial hit that most SMEs cannot afford right now. So, rather than try and protect their networks, companies are hiring outside help. In these cash-constrained times, managed IT service firms offer cybersecurity expertise at unbeatable prices.

Surviving A Challenging Economy Calls For Fresh Thinking

Right now, most businesses are facing unprecedented financial issues. The old ways of doing things aren’t cutting it right now. And so, companies have scrambled to find ways to spend less and work more efficiently.

Managed IT service firms offer elegant solutions to both these problems. If you need to tighten up your operations, they may be able to help.