Outsourcing: What It Is, Advantages, and How to Implement It

Outsourcing in technology services can be a strategic investment to boost business growth.

With all the challenges brought by the technology era, one of the most complex for companies is the ability to implement innovations at the pace they emerge. This can be challenging for tech-exclusive companies, let alone other business segments that do not focus on technology...

Banks, hospitals, industries, construction companies, insurers, retailers, and many other sectors face numerous difficulties in advancing quickly enough to ensure their structures adapt to market innovations (and automatically demanded by consumers).

Even hiring excellent technology professionals, it is unlikely they can keep up with everything needed and meet all demands in the necessary time to keep the business competitive.

This is where outsourcing emerges as an essential solution for many companies.

Unlike simple service outsourcing, outsourcing is considered a strategic investment by hiring partner companies specializing in technologies that can give business dynamics.

In other words, you invest in teams that live technology daily, are up-to-date with the latest innovations, and can help you implement everything necessary in your business to gain productivity at scale and achieve better results.

Not to mention cost reduction, as having such a team on your payroll would be much more expensive, and managing a department separate from your core business (almost like having a second company in a completely different sector) would still be a challenge.

To better present the concept and its advantages, we have prepared this post. Keep reading!

What is Technology Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the practice of outsourcing certain services within a company. This term, breaking down the English word, would be something like "outside source." In other words, it is a resource or service attributed to another company or professional who is not part of the hiring company’s staff.

Many companies are used to outsourcing processes such as logistics, cleaning, security, and infrastructure maintenance, but in outsourcing, the outsourcing is strategic and linked to the company's administrative part or technological improvements.

One of the most frequent demands for outsourcing is hiring information technology (IT) professionals, human resources, accounting, customer service, and customer success.

Outsourcing is one of the most used strategies in IT due to the high cost of hiring and retaining a team of specialized developers.

Among areas that prioritize specialized labor, IT is one of the most competitive, which reflects on company finances.

As it is a constantly evolving area, having a team of developers becomes quite competitive and expensive, which became even more pronounced in the post-pandemic scenario.

The solution for many companies is to rely on outsourcing, which in these cases is an investment in an area that makes a big difference in any company’s growth strategy, whether a technology company or not.

Therefore, hiring an outsourcing company helps reduce costs and keeps the company's focus on its main strategy. It is also a way to have qualified remote teams from anywhere in the world for projects that demand quality and knowledge.

This practice ensures that the hiring company can focus exclusively on its core business, delegating some operational IT tasks to outsourced workers. Tasks that required a higher level of knowledge began to be passed on to these external collaborators, relieving a significant burden from the internal team, which then dedicates itself exclusively to the company’s core activities.

The Advantages of Outsourcing

The benefits of outsourcing are numerous, from simply being able to rely on specialists to reducing expenses. Let’s take a look at them.

The main advantage of outsourcing is the ability to outsource activities that are not essential for the company’s survival, called secondary activities. This way, the entrepreneur can focus efforts, resources, and budget on what they really master and leave other tasks to specialists.

Other benefits include simplified management and cost savings related to secondary activities. With outsourcing, the entrepreneur does not need to control or bear costs related to directly hiring workers. The same goes for material resources needed to perform certain activities, such as machines, programs, and equipment, as a significant portion of this is usually provided by the service provider (when the work is not allocated).

Below, we present some of these advantages in more detail.

Always Up-to-Date

Operational improvement in the organization is possible since partners’ knowledge offers the best technical solutions suited to business needs, ensuring the company can deliver results more dynamically.

These professionals also adopt optimized update routines—both in software and in suggesting new hardware solutions. All this ensures high availability in executing client procedures. Additionally, real-time system monitoring can be requested.

Data Protection

Using outsourcing professionals has become a quite traditional practice. Getting qualified partners is feasible—as long as contractors ensure they are counting on people who can meet business demands.

One of the main benefits of hiring is the technical support offered in tasks involving data processing, for example. Since professionals tend to be tireless students of everything involving technology, they will know how to safeguard the company and offer a high level of information protection.

Knowledge of the Most Relevant Technologies

Relying on an outsourcing service ensures an exchange of ideas between these professionals and your own team. Thus, your employees will be introduced to the functioning of technologies that have revolutionized the market, ensuring a competitive advantage for the companies that adopt them.

A significant sign that your company needs outsourcing is realizing your team can no longer keep up with recent technology and does not meet the company’s needs in the desired time.

Cost Reduction

Outsourcing also provides substantial IT expense cuts. The budget can be reduced in the short term, as implemented solutions and practices ensure the optimization of various activities and areas of the company. This stimulates internal employees and increases overall productivity.

Additionally, outsourcing is much less costly than training the entire internal IT team from scratch. This approach, besides requiring much of the employees’ free time, also delays the company’s progress. Outsourcing offers more immediate and secure responses.

How to Implement Outsourcing in Your Company

The first step to implementing this solution is identifying your company’s needs. What is necessary? What are the organization’s goals? Modernize? Reduce costs? Promote better customer relationships through new experiences? Create a specific solution?

Mapping what you want to achieve by hiring outsourcing is essential to know which solutions should come from various technology areas.

The second step is carefully researching the market for companies offering this alternative: evaluate their knowledge, experience, success stories, clients served, work methods, references, team profile, and methodologies used.

Once you choose the partner that best fits your project, outline detailed planning of initiatives, schedules, operational rules, and even the SLA involved in the service. All details are important, and the logic of "what’s agreed isn’t expensive" is always functional.

Finally, monitor the process daily and see your company grow more effectively, always relying on the most innovative technologies to generate productivity, visibility, and good results alongside a trusted partner.

Do you have a technology challenge in your company and are looking for a partner? Talk to our team!