Some people have an understandably negative reaction towards the word “outsourcing.” Basically, the phrase means to contract out a business process to a separate company or freelancers. The reaction to “outsourcing” would probably be more neutral if the meanings associated with the word ended there. However, a fair amount of people associate the practice of contracting out business processes with less-than-desirable quality, questionable labor conditions, and domestic unemployment. For this reason, businesses may be concerned about the public relations consequences of outsourcing their IT. In addition, on-staff personnel may be afraid of losing their jobs to an external hosting provider. Outsourcing does not have to involve sacrificing quality, ethics, or valued colleagues when a business signs up with an experienced and top-of-the-line cloud hosting provider, however.
Contracted-out IT shares with other forms of outsourcing its ability to save costs. With outsourced IT, businesses no longer have to deal with the expenses of purchasing and maintaining advanced on-site hardware. Instead of servers, storage devices, and workstations, companies only need thin clients, refurbished PCs, a permissive BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, and basic networking equipment. Businesses save thousands of dollars in physical hardware investments alone as a result. In addition, companies no longer require on-site IT personnel. Of course, in the end they pay less in total to the hosting provider than it would have cost them to build and maintain their own IT infrastructure themselves. For their part, external hosting companies cost more to operate than a single IT department, but their economies of scale and multiple customers let them host at a much lower per-infrastructure cost.
Meanwhile, outsourced cloud IT actually improves the quality of an IT infrastructure, in contrast with other forms of outsourcing that sacrifice quality for lower costs. Hosting providers’ superiority results from their larger amount of personnel and resources. These companies can afford to hire better qualified staff with more varied and valuable skills and equip them with the best monitoring and automation tools. On-site IT personnel aren’t less qualified than off-site engineers and technicians, of course—the former simply have less hardware and software resources and fewer coworkers to assist them.
More importantly perhaps than improvements in cost-efficiency and quality, outsourcing IT infrastructures lets businesses’ managers and employees focus on their own work. Too often in the workplace, an employee with technical knowledge has to do double-duty as an in-house IT specialist, troubleshooting and repairing PCs and managing on-site hardware. Infrastructure management and technical support services come packaged with the cloud-based solutions of many hosting providers, however. Not only does this allow managers and employees to focus on their primary tasks, it also lets on-site IT personnel set their sights on more ambitious or valuable projects instead of merely maintaining and supporting the existing infrastructure.
Businesses looking for the ultimate in IT peace of mind, however, should select IronOrbit. With IronOrbit, they get an all-in-one, fully managed and supported IT infrastructure. The solution comes with all the IT components and services a business needs and none of the usual worries:
-24x7x365 technical support. Whether it’s 3 in the afternoon or 12 in the morning, IronOrbit has dozens of highly-trained technicians ready to assist you at any time.
-Fully-managed. The IronOrbit team will work around-the-clock to maintain the security and performance of your IT infrastructure at its highest level.
-Low, flat fees. No more worrying about unexpected software upgrade and hardware replacement costs—you only have to pay a flat monthly rate for IronOrbit.
-No additional on-site hardware required. With IronOrbit, you get a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped IT infrastructure without having to purchase a single server or storage device.
-100% guaranteed uptime. IronOrbit maximizes the availability and reliability of your files and applications. Sign up for it today with a no-risk, 30-day trial.