What are the benefits and challenges of outsourcing IT services?

Outsourcing IT in small to medium sized businesses should be carefully considered as it can be a costly mistake. The service provider is there to sell, sell, sell, make money and take control of your IT systems. As previously mentioned, when you get tired of false promises and being charged for work that's not really relevant to your environment, you have to spend to get your IT management back in place. Bringing in 3rd parties for a defined term IT project is a good idea as long as you have someone in-house to track the project.

A terceiriza??o de servi?os de TI oferece vantagens significativas, mas é essencial considerar cuidadosamente os desafios e tomar medidas para mitigá-los. Como benefícos podemos destacar redu??o de custos, otimiza??o de tempo, padroniza??o de processos. E como desafios podemos destacar a redu??o de controle, confidencialidade de dados e o alinhamento de metas

Pretty solid paragraph; but I'd add the following: it is not just a larger talent pool and expertise, it is also access to a broader portfolio of technology and partners as well. Delegating is true, but it is more about helping the Enterprise achieve its outcomes and objectives - not just day to day operational metrics.

I agree with the majority of the statement, however the key is to understand EXACTLY what the outsourcing arrangement is, ensure it is what you want and ensure you can manage it going forward. This means making sure you have the right contract in place, the right supplier and contract management and the right SLA’s and KPI’s. The work needs to be put in up front to understand what you need and tailor the outsource to this rather than just ‘outsource IT’. By ensuring you know what you want you ensure that the pitfalls mentioned before can be mitigated. Understanding not just your currant IT environment but also your change environment ensures you can add these into contract negotiations so as not to be caught out by changes which will cost.

It is also harder to bring things back in house afterwards as well. Once you outsource, especially if you re-allocate resources (or lay them off as does happen) it can be harder if the relationship goes sour to bring the functions back to the business. This can then set the enterprise on a trend of moving from one Service Provider to another.

If you treat your IT department as an expense column, then outsourcing is the way to go. They'll keep the lights on for you. If you treat your IT department as an asset and provide them with the tools they need, you'll have a vibrant, intelligent, innovative team of people that work every day towards new technology, more efficient workflow, and closer customer/end-user relationships.

One of the primary drivers of outsourcing is cost reduction. These savings must be estimated before taking the decision to outsource. The cost of training outsourced resources to be able to deliver useful output is not trivial, and should be factored into the estimates. Another challenge with outsourcing is attrition within the resources doing the work. This increases the cost of outsourcing because (a) the outsourced resources are rediscovering the wheel for some work due to attrition (b) the new resources may not be systematically trained, and it falls to the outsourcing company to do it.

For smaller businesses in particular, it can be useful to have the outsourced IT company report directly to the owners/directors of the business. I have seen cases where a representative acts as defacto IT Director and meets with the board and external customers/suppliers representing the interests of the company. In this scenario, the outsourcer is not just providing technical support, but strategic vision and roadmap for the future. If you get it right, the supplier has a vested interest in your long term success.

Consider the outsourcing model you want to follow..single source or multisourced...if you outsource "everything" (eg all IT services) to a single party you can become highly dependent on the single supplier, and effectively locked in beyond the planned term of the contract... but if you use multiple suppliers you have to design and manage the interfaces between them. My experience is that making the effort to manage multiple suppliers is well worth it...the large suppliers can't cover everything themselves anyway so they will subcontract some elements, and may not be as effective as you would hope at managing their subcontractors.

Outsourcing can achieve significant cost saving in the shorter term. There does become a reliance on your MSP to take on the onus of investment in staff, development, training and retention if looking at a long term relationship. Having your own staff has the distinct advantage of additional value add whereas an outsourced model will likely incur additional charges for anything above and beyond. Familiarity, long term knowledge and experience count for a lot; Something you can lose with an outsourced model. Ultimately, Outsourced and In-House models invariably rotate in cycles, changes in Leadership typically bring about the change.