Most business managers and their IT leaders don’t really have the time to look at the future of the way they handle and use IT. In the current economic climate when many companies are trying to cope with shrinking budgets moving forward with your IT strategy is very low on everyone’s to do list.
These days there is a growing demand for a company’s IT strategy to be run together with top level overall business strategy. Under these circumstances most managers find themselves dealing with urgent priorities rather than important ones as time and budget demands. However, not dealing with long term IT objectives, can create a situation of short term fire fighting
Where issues that keep coming up are never properly addressed or dealt with, often creating differences between the IT department and the rest of the company. Bearing this in mind, it is small wonder that staff members often lack initiative as they become demoralised and customers lost due to IT downtime.
At least fifty percent of companies fail to recognise the negative impacts that IT downtime can have on their overall business. The increase in these problems, if not addressed, could mean significant increases in company losses and costs into the foreseeable future.
If you find yourself fire fighting on a daily basis then you need to hold your breath and stand back for a moment. Take a realistic; overall view of things and you may be able to see a way out of the current problems. Things don’t have to carry on downwards, proactive change, for example temporarily outsourcing some strategic projects could have a significantly positive effect on your day to day business.
Think on some more and it may well be cheaper in the long run to find yourself a committed IT expert and employ them rather than pay agency costs on top of the pay for a temporary worker. If you don’t want the expense of a high salary right now, and if you want to give your existing staff room for promotion, then why not outsource some of the day to day jobs such as database updates and other regular, essential tasks.
There are things for and things against all of the above, but when you really get down to adding up the costs, outsourcing some projects might work out cheaper than hiring someone on a permanent basis. There are no easy answers to these problems, when you think strategically; outsourcing some of the more mundane tasks could be more cost effective.
Don’t forget that the company you choose has a financial interest in doing the job right and even offering extra services, because they want your business. Knowing that the IT side of your business is professionally supported means that you can expect less downtime – which in turn means less of your own and your employees’ valuable time spent fire fighting. When you outsource IT projects to specialists, you have peace of mind without the expense of full time employees.
