Internal restructuring of IT staff enables businesses to focus on more tactical work. This is a key component in the logic behind outsourcing in Ireland, reveals the 2011 annual survey by HiberniaEvros on outsourcing by managed services specialists.
In addition, outsourcing can help the company focus on core business, access broader IT skills, help with cost savings and deliver IT more efficiently.
“Releasing IT staff for more strategic work has jumped from No 3 to the top priority for outsourcing. The results of our latest survey suggest that companies want to use their internal IT resource more productively and outsource the job of making sure the system works,” said John Kennedy, sales and marketing director, HiberniaEvros.
The HiberniaEvros study revealed that almost 72pc of the companies surveyed are outsourcing at least some part of their IT. Seventeen per cent are considering outsourcing further IT functions, while 30pc are thinking about it. One hundred twenty companies participated in the survey.
The most common functions outsourced include hardware/infrastructure and network management, both at 76pc, network management, IT service desk, IT monitoring and web hosting, all at 40pc. Thirty-eight per cent of respondents said they are outsourcing security/antivirus, while 22pc outsource data backup.
The main reasons why companies do not outsource are due to having sufficient in-house staff.
Some respondents also explained they do not outsource because it is cheaper to manage in house, and because they are afraid of losing control. Out of all the concerns the respondents shared, security/confidentiality was the greatest barrier to outsourcing. This is followed by fear of reliance on an outside supplier. It also showed that finding the right partner was another common concern.
“All of these issues can be addressed by making sure to partner with an experienced provider and ensure that strict service level agreements (SLAs) are in place,” said Kennedy.
The HiberniaEvros study also sheds findings in relation to cloud computing. Thirty-six per cent of Irish businesses are thinking about outsourcing to the cloud, while 3pc already employ some cloud services.
HiberniaEvros recently announced a €1.6m investment in a new infrastructure as a service (IaaS) division, which will allow organisations to outsource in full their infrastructure to a data centre managed 24×7 by HiberniaEvros experts.
