The Trouble with Outsourcing It

Many IT Directors or Managers believe “outsourcing” to be a dirty word.It means that you are replacing employees with an outside agency, that you lose control of your server, your host and essentially no longer have an internal IT department.

At Dimension Systems, Inc. these concerns could not be further from the truth. In fact, we don’t even use the word “outsourcing” – our clients recognize it as “insourcing”.

From a recent article in TechRepublic, here are the top concerns regarding “outsourcing” IT, and why these are not a factor for DSI clients:

Real Cost: When you schedule an appointment with your IT company, you’re going to be charged for travel time both ways, not to mention the learning curve involved while your outsourced engineer learns on the job.

In fact, over 99% of DSI client issues are handled remotely. On rare occasions, one of our staff would be on site for a planned upgrade which is usually scheduled in advance.

Time Factors/Priority: When you have an emergency, you will have to wait until your IT partner is able to get someone there. Where do you stand on the food chain? Are you a big enough client to receive immediate response?

Since we can handle 99% of support remotely, our typical response time is less than 15 minutes. We don’t enjoy passing our customers around as often happens in a help desk approach. We assign both a primary and secondary contact to get to know your environment and personally work with you regarding day-to-day support, efficiently resolving any issues you may encounter.

Familiarity with Network & Systems: Your in-house IT employees know your system & network really well and can respond faster than an IT partner company.

DSI doesn’t change your system – we have experience with your software system and network, so although your internal employees know the database and core systems, they may not be familiar with all the nuances and applications. When you want to augment your own staff with experienced professionals at a lower cost than another full-time employee–that’s where we come in.

Employee Relationships: When all employees are in house, they know one another and how to interact. Our employees will need to get used to frequent new technicians and learn new relationships.

DSI has a very low turnover rate; our staff develops long-lasting relationships with our clients – in fact, frequently the internal employees change more frequently than our account managers or technicians! Most employees have worked for DSI for over ten years.

Liability: Additional security may need to be put in place; an external hard drive could be lost or stolen.

Because DSI has extensive expertise in maintaining quality applications as well as the leading-edge information systems technologies, our experience coupled with our commitment to customer satisfaction actually reduces your technology risk. We are working within your existing systems environment so we do not take any data off-site.

Morale: Once a third-party IT firm is hired, our employees expect pink slips.

Many of our clients actually experience reduced turnover and improved morale. Using DSI services means that they can use their internal resources to concentrate on other core business applications–and they have an expert to call when they need one.

Control: Outsourcing IT means that you will lose control – why outsource a critical aspect of your business systems?

This is possibly the most important point to convey: DSI does not replace your IT staff and we don’t touch your data or move your servers. We are simply there to provide high-level support services to help you maximize the investment that you’ve made in your software system.

When you are interested in expert support for your IT employees, please contact us to discuss your unique environment at 248-926-3400, ext. 233.