By Tom Cole, Managing Director – UK & Europe at Abacus Group

The pandemic has brought to light some clear benefits enjoyed by outsourced IT delivery.

Key Person Risk

The specific focus and structure of in-house technology teams often lead to roles and responsibilities being concentrated. Outsourcing technology delivery dilutes risk as these duties are likely to be distributed between teams. For firms that are in a single location, the COVID-19 pandemic magnifies this risk. The very nature and structure of outsourcing IT delivery are poised to reduce key person risk.

Breadth and Depth

IT MSP’s are structured to deliver not just technology, but service at a scale. There are various disciplines and teams behind the scenes powering this delivery. During the unprecedented times we’ve faced in the last 12 months, MSP’s offer the ability to reallocate and balance resources and team structures to ensure immediate demands are met. Unless in-house teams are of significant size, with the capacity it would be exceedingly difficult to mimic this agility.

Immediate Operational Maturity

Outsourcing means that you instantly benefit from their already established systems, processes and people power. This will in turn lessen the strain on your business and help maintain service during any high demand or extraordinary circumstance events that take place. The cost and energy to invest, maintain, and above all continually improve could be considered a misallocation of time and money, which could be better spent elsewhere within your business.

Less Organisational Complexity

By outsourcing technology, you should expect a simplification to your business operation. During these extraordinary times, businesses need to focus on core commercial priorities. Whilst you cannot outsource accountability, you can outsource responsibility. This lessens the overhead on the business and enables firms to remain agile and lean. My observation within the industry has been that the investors have felt reassured that fund managers have opted for outsourcing IT support, due to the perceived reduction of operational risk.

Client Intelligence

The nature of an MSP means they are highly connected, serving multiple clients. Business intelligence is gained across their clients. This information can be anonymised, consolidated and shared with the client community. One real-world example I have been privy to is surveying clients to understand their operational plans (whilst government guidance was in limbo). This armed clients’ leadership with useful information to gauge consensus within the sector and contribute to decision making. This is just one example, generally speaking, and outside of a pandemic MSP’s can harvest and provide their community (clients) with insights.

Cost Efficiency

One of the most attractive benefits of working with Outsourced IT Support is the savings it provides. Even with the paradigm shift to cloud computing, a significant portion (60-70%) of most technology operating budget is people. The economies of scale enjoyed via the outsource model ensure these costs are tamed and also shaped in a much more scalable way. Services and products are usually priced and packaged, meaning forecasting and modelling technology spend is dramatically simplified.