Scalability and Outsourced Services-Your Key for Growth
Build For Scale
No business owner wants to spend more than they have to on technology. However, when creating technology strategies, it is not enough to understand what is needed today. You need to understand what is going to be needed 2 to 5 years in the future. Is your business going to be 20% to 50% larger or maybe even double its size in your 5-year plan? If so, then your technology needs to match your business strategy. Translated, technology investments today should be able to grow with your business without future substantial investment.
Are you currently implementing a system that you are not sure will scale? This is a key question that requires an answer. By not having a well-aligned strategy, you certainly run the risk of needing to make substantial future investments to upgrade, replace or re-implement your current solutions.
Outsourcing and Managed Services – Focus on your core business
Unless you are a technology business, your business is selling products and services and not running datacenter operations for email, accounting, HR and other applications. Outsourcing companies that offer specialized hosting services for these types of applications and more have come a long way in the last 5 years. They offer 24 hour/7 days a week/365 days a year support, disaster recovery services, backup and restoration services. Additionally, depending on the managed service hosting business, they can add specific application and database support and maintenance. When these services are offered, they are historically available at a cost that is materially lower than if your business was to hire internal staff to perform these services.
The devil is in the details, and in this case, in the master service agreements, statements of work and service level agreements. You need to be comfortable with the contract terms, response times and refunds in the case of service outages and other terms that can affect the economic benefits of these services. However, beyond contract concerns, these service providers generally provide a level of service that your business would be benefit from without a large resource investment.
Do you have experiences, good or bad, with outsourcing some of your IT operations? Have you outsourced your email or other hosting services? What were the key business drivers for you? Cost? Speed to Market? I would enjoy hearing from you.